Environmental, climatic and host population risk factors of human cystic echinococcosis in southwest of Iran

Abstract

Background Cystic echinococcosis (CE), a worldwide zoonotic disease, is affected by various biological and environmental factors. We investigated dog/livestock populations, climatic and environmental factors influencing the distribution of human CE cases in Fars province, southwest Iran. Methods We mapped the addresses of 266 hospitalised CE patients (2004–2014) and studied the effects of different temperature models, mean annual rainfall and humidity, number of frosty days, slope, latitude, land covers, close proximity to nomads travel routes, livestock and dog densities on the occurrence of CE using geographical information systems approach. Data were analyzed by logistic regression. Results In the multivariate model predicting CE, living in an urban setting and densities of cattle and dogs were the most important CE predictors, sequentially. Dry (rained) farm, density of camel and sheep, close proximity to nomads travel routes, humidity, and slope also were considered as the determinants of CE distribution, when analyzed independently. Slope had a negative correlation with CE while temperature, frost days and latitude were not associated with CE. Conclusions In our study, an urban setting was the most important risk factor and likely due to a combination of the high density of key life cycle hosts, dogs and livestock, a large human susceptible population and the high number of abattoirs. Farmland and humidity were highly suggestive risk factors and these conditions support the increased survival of Echinococcus granulosus eggs in the soil. These findings support the development of strategies for control of disease. More research is needed test optimal interventions.

A novel architecture of Web-GIS for mapping and analysis of echinococcosis in Poland

“…Recently, a similar analysis has been performed for the southwestern Iran province of Fars (Ghatee et. al, 2020 ). The research, performed in a different climate and for partially dissimilar list of potential disease spread factors, has revealed positive spatial correlation of human CE with density of livestock, location of irrigated farmlands and low terrain slope.…”

“…The majority of those studies have involved choropleth mapping (Deplazes et al, 2017 ; Brundu et al, 2014 ; Berke, 2005 ; Berke, 2001 ), while some also used hot spot (Ghatee et. al, 2020 ; Huang et al, 2018 ) and dot-based prevalence mapping (Larrieu et. al, 2013 ).…”

“…al, 2013 ). Aside from administrative boundaries, some of the studies also analysed EC infection locations in the context of land use (Huang et al, 2018 ) and terrain height (Ghatee et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2018a ). In all aforementioned cases, the medical data needed to be manually collected, geocoded and pre-processed into a compatible format for the purposes of mapping.…”

Assessment of the Vaccination Program against Cystic Echinococcosis in Sheep in the Pehuenche Community of Central Chile

“…The variation in prevalence among localities in the first assessment could have been due to local factors that were not measured in the study, such as the knowledge and practices of animal owners, which were risk factors that have been reported previously in Chile [25]. These results could also be due to the density of livestock, which were reportedly associated with infection rates elsewhere [26][27][28]. Another study aimed to assess the knowledge and practices surrounding infection during 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible.…”

Isoenzyme and Molecular Characterization of Larval Stage of the Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato Based on the Host Variation in Iran

“…In Iran, extensive infections are observed in dogs and herbivores such as sheep, cattle, camel and goats. Moreover, human patients have been frequently reported from almost all parts of the country, particularly by prominent medical centers [7,8]. A careful study of various aspects of the disease in Iran is very necessary since it is one of the endemic regions with ~ 1% of its total surgeries related to this disease [9].…”