The ecology and epidemiology of Ross River and Murray Valley encephalitis viruses in Western Australia: examples of One Health in Action

Abstract

Arboviruses are maintained and transmitted through an alternating biological cycle in arthropods and vertebrates, with largely incidental disease in humans and animals. As such, they provide excellent examples of One Health, as their health impact is inextricably linked to their vertebrate hosts, their arthropod vectors and the environment. Prevention and control requires a comprehensive understanding of these interactions, and how they may be effectively and safely modified. This review concentrates on human disease due to Ross River and Murray Valley encephalitis viruses, the two major arboviral pathogens in Australia. It describes how their pattern of infection and disease is influenced by natural climatic and weather patterns, and by anthropogenic activities. The latter includes human-mediated environmental manipulations, such as water impoundment infrastructures, human movements and migration, and community and social changes, such as urban spread into mosquito larval habitats. Effective interventions need to be directed at the environmental precursors of risk. This can best be achieved using One Health approaches to improve collaboration and coordination between different disciplines and cross-sectoral jurisdictions in order to develop more holistic mitigation and control procedures, and to address poorly understood ecological issues through multidisciplinary research.

The One Health path to infectious disease prevention and resilience

“…This is illustrated in the Ross River and Murray Valley in Western Australia, where the risk of infection appears to shift with both natural climatic patterns and human-made environmental manipulations; and for which Mackenzie and colleagues describe a robust architecture of monitoring climate, animal, and vector populations, water sources, and other ecological factors determining human risk in order to prevent outbreaks. 6 The shift away from viewing the host and pathogen in isolation, to understanding the crucible in which they live, increases complexity and requires a more integrative scientific method that we now refer to as One Health. In this context, Machalaba and colleagues report on an interdisciplinary collaboration investigating how best to evaluate the economic value of investing in One Health approaches to better control and prevent zoonotic infections.…”

Arthritogenic Alphaviruses: A Worldwide Emerging Threat?

“…Indeed, climate and weather patterns are important factors in the occurrence of epidemics, which have become the focus of many modeling studies. For example, natural climatic and weather trends influenced RRV’s pattern of infection, especially hydrological features [125,259] and temperatures [260,261,262]; and a modeling study predicts that global warming might lead to the presence of MAYV across all of the Brazilian territory [263].…”

Japanese Encephalitis Virus in Australia: From Known Known to Known Unknown

“…The investigations presented in the current paper are, in effect, examples of One Health in action. Indeed, a One Health approach has been successfully used to understand JEV transmission and to provide tools to combat epidemics [5], and it has been suggested that the employment of One Health strategies, particularly those concerned with improving coordination and collaboration across different disciplines and jurisdictions, are essential to planning and initiating interventions to mitigate risk and in improving prevention and control of mosquito-borne arboviruses [52].…”