Abstract
Bluetongue virus (BTV) causes a disease that is endemic in Spain and its two major biological vector species, C. imicola and the Obsoletus complex species, differ greatly in their ecology and distribution. Understanding the seasonality of BTV transmission in risk areas is key to improving surveillance and control programs, as well as to better understand the pathogen transmission networks between wildlife and livestock. Here, monthly risk transmission maps were generated using risk categories based on well-known BTV R0 equations and predicted abundances of the two most relevant vectors in Spain. Previously, Culicoides spp. predicted abundances in mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands were obtained using remote sensing data and random forest machine learning algorithm. Risk transmission maps were externally assessed with the estimated date of infection of BTV-1 and BTV-4 historical outbreaks. Our results highlight the differences in risk transmission during April-October, June-August being the period with higher R0 values. Likewise, a natural barrier has been identified between northern and central-southern areas at risk that may hamper BTV spread between them. Our results can be relevant to implement risk-based interventions for the prevention, control and surveillance of BTV and other diseases shared between livestock and wildlife host populations.
Highlights
Bluetongue (BT) is an infectious and arboviral disease with a worldwide distribution, that affects primarily ruminants [1]
We evaluated the performance of abundance models using the mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean squared error (RMSE)
The external assessment of the monthly models shows their great performance (Table 2), i.e., for the month of the highest number of outbreaks according to the estimated date of infection, 89.77% for bluetongue virus (BTV)-1 and 94.12% for BTV-4 fell in areas of high and medium risk of transmission
Summary
Bluetongue (BT) is an infectious and arboviral disease with a worldwide distribution, that affects primarily ruminants [1]. Bluetongue is caused by bluetongue virus (BTV), the type species of the Orbivirus genus [2]. Numerous serotypes of BTV have been identified, in recent years due to the intensification of BTV sequencing [3]. Clinical forms of BT vary greatly depending on the affected species, sheep and white-tailed deer being the most susceptible ones to the disease [1]; the specific BTV strain is important, as shown by the greater susceptibility of cattle during the BTV-8 circulation in north and central Europe [4]. Five different BTV serotypes have historically affected Spain (BTV-1, 2, 4, 8 and 10), differing in their spatial distribution. BTV-2 circulated in Minorca and eastern Majorca in 2000 and was deemed
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