A Landscape-based Model for Predicting <Emphasis Type="Italic">Mycobacterium ulcerans</Emphasis> Infection (Buruli Ulcer Disease) Presence in Benin,West Africa |
| |
Authors: | Tyler Wagner M Eric Benbow Meghan Burns R Christian Johnson Richard W Merritt Jiaguo Qi Pamela L C Small |
| |
Institution: | (1) Quantitative Fisheries Center, Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA;(2) Department of Entomology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA;(3) Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA;(4) Programme National de lutte contre l’UB, Cotonou, Benin, West Africa;(5) Departments of Entomology and Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA;(6) Department of Microbiology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Mycobacterium ulcerans infection (Buruli ulcer BU] disease) is an emerging tropical disease that causes severe morbidity in many communities, especially
those in close proximity to aquatic environments. Research and control efforts are severely hampered by the paucity of data
regarding the ecology of this disease; for example, the vectors and modes of transmission remain unknown. It is hypothesized
that BU presence is associated with altered landscapes that perturb aquatic ecosystems; however, this has yet to be quantified
over large spatial scales. We quantified relationships between land use/land cover (LULC) characteristics surrounding individual
villages and BU presence in Benin, West Africa. We also examined the effects of other village-level characteristics which
we hypothesized to affect BU presence, such as village distance to the nearest river. We found that as the percent urban land
use in a 50-km buffer surrounding a village increased, the probability of BU presence decreased. Conversely, as the percent
agricultural land use in a 20-km buffer surrounding a village increased, the probability of BU presence increased. Landscape-based
models had predictive ability when predicting BU presence using validation data sets from Benin and Ghana, West Africa. Our
analyses suggest that relatively small amounts of urbanization are associated with a decrease in the probability of BU presence,
and we hypothesize that this is due to the increased availability of pumped water in urban environments. Our models provide
an initial approach to predicting the probability of BU presence over large spatial scales in Benin and Ghana, using readily
available land use data. |
| |
Keywords: | Mycobacterium ulcerans Buruli ulcer infectious disease West Africa land use/cover landscape-based model |
本文献已被 PubMed SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|