Environmental Changes and Mosquito-Borne Diseases in Arid Environments

描述（由研究者提供）：一个主要的公共卫生挑战是更好地了解和预测人为环境变化如何影响媒介传播的疾病。为了应对人口的迅速增长，中东许多国家正在发展前所未有的大规模农业灌溉系统，以增加粮食产量。在上埃及，人们主要担心正在进行的改造沙漠环境以促进旧尼罗河谷（约7万英亩）和托什卡河谷（近100万英亩）灌溉农业的项目将大大增加重要蚊媒疾病的风险。这些项目正在为病媒种群创造新的适宜栖息地，并为大规模人类和动物种群的迁移和定居提供便利。该项目解决了确定上埃及灌溉农业的土地利用和沙漠环境的大规模改造如何影响公认的西尼罗河病毒（WNV）的风险和传播动态以及裂谷热病毒（RVFV）和疟疾的流行潜力的需要。有3个具体目标：1)确定灌溉农业的土地利用和沙漠环境的转变如何影响蚊子物种的生态和行为及其病原体传播潜力；2)评估鸟类中的西尼罗河病毒和家畜中的裂谷热病毒的程度，评估动物宿主多样性和相对丰度的地理异质性如何影响病原体传播潜力；3)采用生态流行病学建模方法评估环境变化对蚊媒疾病复杂动态和风险的影响。该项目代表了一个独特的机会，可以在沙漠环境中前所未有的大规模环境扰动的背景下，前瞻性地量化媒介-宿主-病原体种群动态。该项目的成果将有助于埃及以及中东其他地区的综合疾病监测和控制规划。

DESCRIPTION (provided by investigator): A major public health challenge is to better understand and predict how anthropogenic environmental changes affect vector-borne diseases. In response to rapidly expanding human populations many countries in the Middle East are developing unprecedented large-scale agricultural irrigation systems to increase food production. In Upper Egypt, there are major concerns that projects underway to transform desert environments for irrigated agriculture in the Old Nile Valley (about 70,000 acres) and in the Toshka Valley (nearly 1 million acres) will substantially increase the risks of important mosquito-borne diseases. These projects are creating new suitable habitats for vector populations and facilitating the migration and establishment of large human and animal populations. This project addresses the need to determine how land use and the large-scale transformation of desert environments for irrigated agriculture in Upper Egypt affects the risk and transmission dynamics of the well-established West Nile virus (WNV) and the epidemic potential of Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) and malaria. There are 3 specific aims: 1) determine how land use and the transformation of desert environments for irrigated agriculture affect the ecology and behavior of mosquito species and their potential for pathogen transmission, 2) evaluate the extent of WNV in birds and RVFV in domestic livestock and assess how geographic heterogeneity in animal host diversity and relative abundance affects the potential for pathogen transmission, and 3) employ eco-epidemiological modeling approaches to assess the impact of environmental changes on the complex dynamics and risks of mosquito-borne diseases. This project represents a unique opportunity to prospectively quantify vector-host-pathogen population dynamics in the context of unprecedented large-scale environmental perturbations in desert environments. The outcomes of this project will contribute to integrated disease surveillance and control programs in Egypt as well as other areas of the Middle East. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project will investigate how land use and the large-scale transformation of desert environments for irrigated agriculture in Upper Egypt affects the risk and transmission dynamics of important mosquito-borne diseases including West Nile virus, Rift Valley fever virus, and malaria. By identifying high-risk areas and underlying ecological mechanisms affecting interactions between the environment and populations of vectors, pathogens, animal reservoirs, and human hosts, this project will contribute to the public health goal of establishing effective vector-borne disease surveillance and control programs in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.