Spatio-temporal patterns of livestock anthrax in Ukraine during the past century (1913–2012)

Abstract

Anthrax is a severe, under-reported zoonosis, caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, that affects livestock, wildlife, and humans nearly worldwide. Humans most often contract anthrax from animal products, including meat, bones, and hide. In the early 20th century, a large number of livestock anthrax outbreaks in the Russian Empire were in Ukrainian territories. During the past century, as a part of the Soviet Union and as an independent nation, Ukraine has continually experienced livestock and human anthrax outbreaks. Here, we used georeferenced livestock outbreak data from 1913 to 2012 to report spatio-temporal patterns and use spatial analysis to define hotspots of livestock anthrax from historical to contemporary times in Ukraine. We were most interested in comparing changes in anthrax reporting over the past century, and to identify areas where anthrax persists in modern times. Historically (1913–1978), anthrax reporting sites were widely distributed across the country with relatively large hotspots. In the contemporary period (1979–2012), there were 72× fewer initial anthrax reporting sites. Weighted hotspot analysis identified multiple anthrax foci, though these were smaller than historical hotspots. Space time analysis of moving polygons (STAMP) showed that expanding and stable anthrax foci overlapped historical reporting areas, and newly generated foci that were located near recently reported wildlife outbreaks. These findings may help better direct future control and mitigation efforts, and indicate that alternative detection methods (e.g. wildlife surveillance and predictive ecological models) may be helpful.