AI Article Synopsis
- Climate change is expected to increase the prevalence and geographical spread of infectious diseases like anthrax, particularly in regions like Kenya where knowledge about these impacts is limited.
- The study used ecological niche modeling with historical anthrax occurrence data to predict future distributions of the disease under different climate scenarios for the year 2055.
- Findings show a predicted expansion of anthrax risk areas from 36,131 km² currently to approximately 40,012 km² and 39,835 km² under climate change scenarios RCP 4.5 and 8.5, respectively, with a notable northward shift in distribution.
Article Abstract
The climate is changing, and such changes are projected to cause global increase in the prevalence and geographic ranges of infectious diseases such as anthrax. There is limited knowledge in the tropics with regards to expected impacts of climate change on anthrax outbreaks. We determined the future distribution of anthrax in Kenya with representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 for year 2055. Ecological niche modelling (ENM) of boosted regression trees (BRT) was applied in predicting the potential geographic distribution of anthrax for current and future climatic conditions. The models were fitted with presence-only anthrax occurrences (n = 178) from historical archives (2011-2017), sporadic outbreak surveys (2017-2018), and active surveillance (2019-2020). The selected environmental variables in order of importance included rainfall of wettest month, mean precipitation (February, October, December, July), annual temperature range, temperature seasonality, length of longest dry season, potential evapotranspiration and slope. We found a general anthrax risk areal expansion i.e., current, 36,131 km, RCP 4.5, 40,012 km, and RCP 8.5, 39,835 km. The distribution exhibited a northward shift from current to future. This prediction of the potential anthrax distribution under changing climates can inform anticipatory measures to mitigate future anthrax risk.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8103515 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084176 | DOI Listing |
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