RT Journal Article
T1 Predictable ecology and geography of avian influenza (H5N1) transmission in Nigeria and West Africa
A1 Williams, Richard Alexander John
A1 Fasina, Folorunso
AB The emerging virus strain termed highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPH5N1) has spread widely in the past decade and is now the focus of considerable concern in several sectors. We tested the hypothesis that spatial distributions of veterinary and human HP-H5N1 cases are related to coarse-scale environmental features in West Africa. We used ecological niche models to associate Nigerian HP-H5N1 occurrences with 1 km resolution digital data layers summarizing parameters of surface reflectance and landform. Predictive challenges included anticipating the spatial distribution of (i) random subsamples and (ii) spatially and temporally stratified subsamples of Nigerian occurrence data, and (iii) more limited occurrence data from across West Africa. In almost all tests, we found that HP-H5N1 cases were occurring under predictable environmental conditions, suggesting that elements of the transmission cycle have some form of ecological determination, here measured as differences in land-surfacereflectance and plant phenology through the year. Considerable additional work is needed to establish how these differences affect HP-H5N1 transmission.
PB Elsevier
SN 0035-9203
YR 2008
FD 2008
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/100354
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/100354
LA eng
NO Williams RA, Fasina FO, Peterson AT. Predictable ecology and geography of avian influenza (H5N1) transmission in Nigeria and West Africa. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 2008 May 1;102(5):471-9.
NO U.S. Geological Survey
DS Docta Complutense
RD 15 ene 2026