Predicting the Environmental Suitability and Identifying Climate and Sociodemographic Correlates of Guinea Worm (Dracunculus medinensis) in Chad.

A comprehensive understanding of the spatial distribution and correlates of infection are key for the planning of disease control programs and assessing the feasibility of elimination and/or eradication. In this work, we used species distribution modeling to predict the environmental suitability of the Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinensis) and identify important climatic and sociodemographic risk factors. Using Guinea worm surveillance data collected by the Chad Guinea Worm Eradication Program (CGWEP) from 2010 to 2022 in combination with remotely sensed climate and sociodemographic correlates of infection within an ensemble machine learning framework, we mapped the environmental suitability of Guinea worm infection in Chad.

Unhealthy herds and the predator-spreader: Understanding when predation increases disease incidence and prevalence.

Disease ecologists now recognize the limitation behind examining host-parasite interactions in isolation: community members-especially predators-dramatically affect host-parasite dynamics. Although the initial paradigm was that predation should reduce disease in prey populations ("healthy herds hypothesis"), researchers have realized that predators sometimes increase disease in their prey. These "predator-spreaders" are now recognized as critical to disease dynamics, but empirical research on the topic remains fragmented.

Estimating from early exponential growth: parallels between 1918 influenza and 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemics.

The large spatial scale, geographical overlap, and similarities in transmission mode between the 1918 H1N1 influenza and 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemics together provide a novel opportunity to investigate relationships between transmission of two different diseases in the same location. To this end, we use initial exponential growth rates in a Bayesian hierarchical framework to estimate the basic reproductive number, , of both disease outbreaks in a common set of 43 cities in the United States. By leveraging multiple epidemic time series across a large spatial area, we are able to better characterize the variation in across the United States.

Epidemic time series similarity is related to geographic distance and age structure.

Objective: More similar locations may have similar infectious disease dynamics. There is clear overlap in putative causes for epidemic similarity, such as geographic distance, age structure, and population size. We compare the effects of these potential drivers on epidemic similarity compared to a baseline assumption that differences in the basic reproductive number ( ) will translate to differences in epidemic trajectories.

Infectious disease: Dog diets may drive transmission cycles in human Guinea worm disease.

Domestic dogs have an important role in the ecology of transmission of the Guinea worm, a debilitating human parasite. A new study documents how fish content in dogs' diets can predict Guinea worm infection status, suggesting additional avenues for control.

Do predators keep prey healthy or make them sicker? A meta-analysis.

Ecological theory suggests that predators can either keep prey populations healthy by reducing parasite burdens or alternatively, increase parasitism in prey. To quantify the overall magnitude and direction of the effect of predation on parasitism in prey observed in practice, we conducted a meta-analysis of 47 empirical studies. We also examined how study attributes, including parasite type and life cycle, habitat type, study design, and whether predators were able to directly consume prey contributed to variation in the predator-prey-parasite interaction.

Identifying correlates of Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinensis) infection in domestic dog populations.

Few human infectious diseases have been driven as close to eradication as dracunculiasis, caused by the Guinea worm parasite (Dracunculus medinensis). The number of human cases of Guinea worm decreased from an estimated 3.5 million in 1986 to mere hundreds by the 2010s.