Abstract
The possibility that outbreaks of bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) might occur via long-distance wind dispersion (LDWD) of their insect vector (Culicoides spp.) was proposed by R. F. Sellers in a series of papers published between 1977 and 1991. These investigated the role of LDWD by means of visual examination of the wind direction of synoptic weather charts. Based on the hypothesis that simple wind direction analysis, which does not allow for wind speed, might have led to spurious conclusions, we reanalyzed six of the outbreak scenarios described in Sellers’ papers. For this reanalysis, we used a custom-built Big Data application (“TAPPAS”) which couples a user-friendly web-interface with an established atmospheric dispersal model (“HYSPLIT”), thus enabling more sophisticated modeling than was possible when Sellers undertook his analyzes. For the two AHS outbreaks, there was strong support from our reanalysis of the role of LDWD for that in Spain (1966), and to a lesser degree, for the outbreak in Cyprus (1960). However, for the BT outbreaks, the reassessments were more complex, and for one of these (western Turkey, 1977) we could discount LDWD as the means of direct introduction of the virus. By contrast, while the outbreak in Cyprus (1977) showed LDWD was a possible means of introduction, there is an apparent inconsistency in that the outbreaks were localized while the dispersion events covered much of the island. For Portugal (1956), LDWD from Morocco on the dates suggested by Sellers is very unlikely to have been the pathway for introduction, and for the detection of serotype 2 in Florida (1982), LDWD from Cuba would require an assumption of a lengthy survival time of the midges in the air column. Except for western Turkey, the BT reanalyses show the limitation of LDWD modeling when used by itself, and indicates the need to integrate susceptible host population distribution (and other covariate) data into the modeling process. A further refinement, which will become increasingly important to assess LDWD, will be the use of virus and vector genome sequence data collected from potential source and the incursion sites.
Highlights
Bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) are major animal diseases affecting mostly sheep and horses, respectively [1, 2]
There were no records of importation of wild or domestic ruminants immediately before the outbreak, and the only conclusion was that it might have been via the transport of Culicoides in aircraft or on ships [32]
When Sellers wrote his papers between 1977 and 1992 suggesting that long-distance dispersal of Culicoides midges by wind might be a mechanism for the spread of bluetongue virus (BTV) and African horse sickness virus (AHSV), there was at the time no experimental support, and the inference was based purely on “ruling out” other pathways, especially the movement of animals
Summary
Bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) are major animal diseases affecting mostly sheep and horses, respectively [1, 2]. Determining the exact pathway of introduction of the two diseases is often problematic, as judged by the extensive investigations into the possible source of the BTV-8 serotype which was introduced into the Netherlands in 2006 [10]. These investigations considered all potential mechanisms of introduction, but were only able to conclude that “the exact origin and route of the introduction of BTV-8 far remains unknown” [10]
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