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Spatial distribution of Haemaphysalis species ticks and human Kyasanur Forest Disease cases along the Western Ghats of India, 2017–2018

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Abstract

Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD) is a viral haemorrhagic fever, transmitted to humans and other hosts by a tick vector of genus Haemaphysalis. It affects 400–500 people annually in the Western Ghats region of India through spring to summer season. To understand the species composition, distribution, and abundance of Haemaphysalis ticks in endemic taluks (sub-districts) of India, a surveillance for ticks was conducted between October 2017 and January 2018. In total 105 sites were selected based on grid sampling from five taluks representing five KFD endemic states in south India. A sum of 8373 ticks were collected by using standard flagging method. The study showed a wide distribution of host seeking tick species among the selected taluks, wherein Haemaphysalis spinigera was predominant in 3/5 taluks, Haemaphysalis bispinosa in 1/5 taluks, and both the species in 1/5 taluks. Further, the H. spinigera abundance was categorised and compared with the incidence of human cases during the same season. The grids with very high and high H. spinigera abundance had 70% of the 205 human cases reported. This method of tick surveillance could be efficiently used as a standard model for KFD transmission risk assessment and prediction of impending outbreaks.

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Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge their sincere gratitude to all the state and district Government health officials of Wayanad in Kerala, Nilgiris in Tamilnadu, Shimoga in Karnataka, North Goa in Goa and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra for their immense support in executing this study. We would also like to extend our gratitude for all the AFI Project Administrators, Site managers, Specialists, Research assistants, technicians and field support staffs for their support in this study.

Funding

This work was partially funded from AFI project under the Cooperative Agreement, Grant no U01GH001051, awarded to GA, Manipal Academy of Higher Education by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, USA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Manipal Centre for Virus Research (Regional Reference Laboratory for Influenza Viruses and ICMR Virology Network Laboratory-Grade-I), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (Deemed to be University), Manipal, Karnataka State, 576104, India

    N. Naren Babu, Anup Jayaram, H. Hemanth Kumar, Prashant Pareet, Sarthak Pattanaik, Amogh Milind Auti, Jazeel Abdulmajeed, Hindol Maity, Santhosha Devadiga, Yuvraj Bhandari, H. Agre Deepchand, Muhammed Shakir, Nishikant Kumar & Govindakarnavar Arunkumar

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  1. N. Naren Babu
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  2. Anup Jayaram
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Contributions

Designed the study: NBN, AJ; performed the experiment: NBN, AJ, HKH, PP, ADH, SP, MS, NK, YB, SD and AMA; GIS and data analysis: HM; wrote the paper: NBN, PP and SP; Reviewed: GA and all work supervised: GA and JA. All authors have read and approve the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Govindakarnavar Arunkumar.

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Naren Babu, N., Jayaram, A., Hemanth Kumar, H. et al. Spatial distribution of Haemaphysalis species ticks and human Kyasanur Forest Disease cases along the Western Ghats of India, 2017–2018. Exp Appl Acarol 77, 435–447 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-019-00345-9

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