Person:
Aguilar Vega, Cecilia

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First Name
Cecilia
Last Name
Aguilar Vega
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Veterinaria
Department
Sanidad Animal
Area
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UCM identifierScopus Author IDDialnet ID

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Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Item
    Quantitative risk assessment of African swine fever introduction into Spain by legal import of swine products
    (Research in Veterinary Science, 2023) Muñoz Pérez, Carolina; Martínez López, Beatriz; Gómez Vázquez, José Pablo; Aguilar Vega, Cecilia; Bosch López, Jaime Alfonso; Ito, Satoshi; Martínez Avilés, Marta; Sánchez-Vizcaíno Rodríguez, José Manuel
    African swine fever (ASF) is currently threatening the global swine industry. Its unstoppable global spread poses a serious risk to Spain, one of the world's leading producers. Over the past years, there has been an increased global burden of ASF not only in swine but also swine products. Unfortunately, many pigs are not diagnosed before slaughter and their products are used for human consumption. These ASF-contaminated products are only a source for new ASF outbreaks when they are consumed by domestic pigs or wild boar, which may happen either by swill feeding or landfill access. This study presents a quantitative stochastic risk assessment model for the introduction of ASF into Spain via the legal import of swine products, specifically pork and pork products. Entry assessment, exposure assessment, consequence assessment and risk estimation were carried out. The results suggest an annual probability of ASF introduction into Spain of 1.74 × 10−4, the highest risk being represented by Hungary, Portugal, and Poland. Monthly risk distribution is homogeneously distributed throughout the year. Illegal trade and pork product movement for own consumption (e.g., air and ship passenger luggage) have not been taken into account due to the lack of available, accredited data sources. This limitation may have influenced the model's outcomes and, the risk of introduction might be higher than that estimated. Nevertheless, the results presented herein would contribute to allocating resources to areas at higher risk, improving prevention and control strategies and, ultimately, would help reduce the risk of ASF introduction into Spain.
  • Item
    Application of machine learning with large-scale data for an effective vaccination against classical swine fever for wild boar in Japan
    (Scientific Reports, 2024) Ito, Satoshi; Aguilar Vega, Cecilia; Bosch López, Jaime Alfonso; Isoda, Norikazu; Sánchez-Vizcaíno Rodríguez, José Manuel
    Classical swine fever has been spreading across the country since its re-emergence in Japan in 2018. Gifu Prefecture has been working diligently to control the disease through the oral vaccine dissemination targeting wild boars. Although vaccines were sprayed at 14,000 locations between 2019 and 2020, vaccine ingestion by wild boars was only confirmed at 30% of the locations. Here, we predicted the vaccine ingestion rate at each point by Random Forest modeling based on vaccine dissemination data and created prediction surfaces for the probability of vaccine ingestion by wild boar using spatial interpolation techniques. Consequently, the distance from the vaccination point to the water source was the most important variable, followed by elevation, season, road density, and slope. The area under the curve, model accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity for model evaluation were 0.760, 0.678, 0.661, and 0.685, respectively. Areas with high probability of wild boar vaccination were predicted in northern, eastern, and western part of Gifu. Leave-One-Out Cross Validation results showed that Kriging approach was more accurate than the Inverse distance weighting method. We emphasize that effective vaccination strategies based on epidemiological data are essential for disease control and that our proposed tool is also applicable for other wildlife diseases.
  • Item
    Geospatial analysis for strategic wildlife disease surveillance: African swine fever in South Korea (2019–2021)
    (Plos One, 2024) Ito, Satoshi; Bosch López, Jaime Alfonso; Aguilar Vega, Cecilia; Jeong, Hyunkyu; Sánchez-Vizcaíno Rodríguez, José Manuel
    Since the confirmation of African swine fever (ASF) in South Korea in 2019, its spread, predominantly in wild boars, has been a significant concern. A key factor in this situation is the lack of identification of risk factors by surveillance bias. The unique orography, characterized by high mountains, complicates search efforts, leading to overlooked or delayed case detection and posing risks to the swine industry. Additionally, shared rivers with neighboring country present a continual threat of virus entry. This study employs geospatial analysis and statistical methods to 1) identify areas at high risk of ASF occurrence but possibly under-surveilled, and 2) indicate strategic surveillance points for monitoring the risk of ASF virus entry through water bodies and basin influences. Pearson’s rho test indicated that elevation (rho = -0.908, p-value < 0.001) and distance from roads (rho = -0.979, p-value < 0.001) may have a significant impact on limiting surveillance activities. A map of potential under-surveilled areas was created considering these results and was validated by a chi-square goodness-of-fit test (X-square = 208.03, df = 1, p-value < 0.001). The strong negative correlation (rho = -0.997, p-value <0.001) between ASF-positive wild boars and distance from water sources emphasizes that areas surrounding rivers are one of the priority areas for monitoring. The subsequent hydrological analyses provided important points for monitoring the risk of virus entry via water from the neighboring country. This research aims to facilitate early detection and prevent further spread of ASF.