Spatio-Temporal Identification of Areas Suitable for XXXX in the Mediterranean Basin and Central Europe.

@entity1 @entity26344 @entity1641 @entity198 @entity22968
UNASSIGNED: @entity22968 ( @entity22968 ) is a mosquito-transmitted Flavivirus belonging to the Japanese @entity198 antigenic complex of the Flaviviridae family. Its spread in the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans poses a significant risk to @entity1 health and forces public health officials to constantly monitor the virus transmission to ensure prompt application of preventive measures. In this context, predictive tools indicating the areas and periods at major risk of @entity22968 transmission are of paramount importance. Spatial analysis approaches, which use environmental and climatic variables to find suitable habitats for @entity22968 spread, can enhance predictive techniques. Using the Mahalanobis Distance statistic, areas ecologically most suitable for sustaining @entity22968 transmission were identified in the Mediterranean basin and Central Europe. About 270 @entity1 and @entity1641 clinical cases notified in Italy, Greece, Portugal, Morocco, and Tunisia, between 2008 and 2012, have been considered. The environmental variables included in the model were altitude, slope, night time Land Surface Temperature, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Enhanced Vegetation Index, and daily temperature range. Seasonality of mosquito population has been modelled and included in the analyses to produce monthly maps of suitable areas for @entity26344 . Between May and July, the most suitable areas are located in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and North Cyprus. Summer/Autumn months, particularly between August and October, characterize the suitability in Italy, France, Spain, the Balkan countries, Morocco, North Tunisia, the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and the Middle East. The persistence of suitable conditions in December is confined to the coastal areas of Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Israel.
