Spatiotemporal Co-occurrence of Flanders and West Nile Viruses Within Culex Populations in Shelby County, Tennessee

West Nile virus (WNV) and Flanders virus (FLAV) can cocirculate in Culex mosquitoes in parts of North America. A large dataset of mosquito pools tested for WNV and FLAV was queried to understand the spatiotemporal relationship between these two viruses in Shelby County, TN. We found strong evidence of global clustering (i.e., spatial autocorrelation) and overlapping of local clustering (i.e., Hot Spots based on Getis Ord Gi*) of maximum likelihood estimates (MLE) of infection rates (IR) during 2008–2013. Temporally, FLAV emerges and peaks on average 10.2 wk prior to WNV based on IR. Higher levels of WNV IR were detected within 3,000 m of FLAV-positive pool buffers than outside these buffers.

Source: Journal of Medical Entomology - May 19, 2016 Category: Biology Authors: Lucero, D. E., Carlson, T. C., Delisle, J., Poindexter, S., Jones, T. F., Moncayo, A. C. Tags: Modeling/GIS, Risk Assessment, Economic Impact Source Type: research