Abstract
Tick paralysis resulting from bites from Ixodes holocyclus and I. cornuatus is one of the leading causes of emergency veterinary admissions for companion animals in Australia, often resulting in death if left untreated. Availability of timely information on periods of increased risk can help modulate behaviors that reduce exposures to ticks and improve awareness of owners for the need of lifesaving preventative ectoparasite treatment. Improved awareness of clinicians and pet owners about temporal changes in tick paralysis risk can be assisted by ecological forecasting frameworks that integrate environmental information into statistical time series models. Using an 11-year time series of tick paralysis cases from veterinary clinics in one of Australia's hotspots for the paralysis tick Ixodes holocyclus, we asked whether an ensemble model could accurately forecast clinical caseloads over near-term horizons. We fit a series of statistical time series (ARIMA, GARCH) and generative models (Prophet, Generalised Additive Model) using environmental variables as predictors, and then combined forecasts into a weighted ensemble to minimise prediction interval error. Our results indicate that variables related to temperature anomalies, levels of vegetation moisture and the Southern Oscillation Index can be useful for predicting tick paralysis admissions. Our model forecasted tick paralysis cases with exceptional accuracy while preserving epidemiological interpretability, outperforming a field-leading benchmark Exponential Smoothing model by reducing both point and prediction interval errors. Using online particle filtering to assimilate new observations and adjust forecast distributions when new data became available, our model adapted to changing temporal conditions and provided further reduced forecast errors. We expect our model pipeline to act as a platform for developing early warning systems that can notify clinicians and pet owners about heightened risks of environmentally driven veterinary conditions.
Highlights
Tick paralysis, caused by neurotoxins in the saliva of ixodid hard ticks (Family Ixodidae; Genus Ixodes), is a life-threatening vector-borne disease affecting a range of vertebrates including humans [1,2]
Our results indicate that variables related to temperature anomalies, levels of vegetation moisture and the Southern Oscillation Index can be useful for predicting tick paralysis admissions
In Australia, thousands of domestic dogs are admitted to emergency veterinary clinics due to tick paralysis each year
Summary
Tick paralysis, caused by neurotoxins in the saliva of ixodid hard ticks (Family Ixodidae; Genus Ixodes), is a life-threatening vector-borne disease affecting a range of vertebrates including humans [1,2]. Dogs and cats are the most vulnerable and frequently parasitized domestic host species, with paralysis tick envenomation in these animals requiring immediate veterinary medical attention [3,4]. Reducing exposures to ticks is crucial to limit envenomation risk. This need is heightened by evidence that paralysis ticks can cause severe allergic conditions in domestic animals and humans and can act as vectors for a suite of zoonotic pathogens (including Rickettsia, Orienta, Bartonella and Babesia species; [7,8])
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