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Climate change and the recent emergence of bluetongue in Europe

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 01 February 2006

Abstract

Bluetongue, a devastating disease of ruminants, has historically made only brief, sporadic incursions into the fringes of Europe. However, since 1998, six strains of bluetongue virus have spread across 12 countries and 800 km further north in Europe than has previously been reported. We suggest that this spread has been driven by recent changes in European climate that have allowed increased virus persistence during winter, the northward expansion of Culicoides imicola, the main bluetongue virus vector, and, beyond this vector's range, transmission by indigenous European Culicoides species — thereby expanding the risk of transmission over larger geographical regions. Understanding this sequence of events may help us predict the emergence of other vector-borne pathogens.

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Figure 1: Distribution of BTV and Culicoides vectors.
Figure 2: The transmission of BTV is affected by changes in temperature.
Figure 3: Recent warming trends in Europe.
Figure 4: Fourier images of spatial variation in recent climate change in Europe.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank A. J. Graham and S. Archibald for assistance with the figures and M. Rebetez for useful discussions. B.V.P. was supported by a BBSRC/DEFRA grant 'Epidemiology and control of orbiviral diseases in the UK, with particular reference to bluetongue and African horse sickness' awarded to P.S.M. and M.B. P.S.M., M.B., B.P. and D.J.R. are also grateful for financial support from the European Commission.

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DATABASES

Entrez

Bluetongue virus

FURTHER INFORMATION

BTV sequence database

Ceratoponidae Information Exchange

Climate Research Unit

CRU TS 2.0 dataset

European Climate Assessment Reports

IAH Arbovirology group

IAH Mathematical modelling group

OIE

OIE Disease information — BTV distribution

TALA Research group

Glossary

CLIMATIC ENVELOPE

The range of climatic variation in which a species can currently persist in the face of competitors, predators and disease.

EL NIÑO SOUTHERN OSCILLATION

A periodic ocean–atmosphere fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean that is an important cause of inter-annual climate variability around the world and which is particularly associated with drought and flood events.

FOURIER PROCESSING

A mathematical technique that expresses a time-series as the sum of a series of sine waves and which is used by climatologists to summarize the seasonal cycles (annual, bi-annual, tri-annual) of multi-temporal climate data.

HAEMOCOEL

The main body cavity of many invertebrates, including insects, that is formed from an expanded 'blood' system.

NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE VEGETATION INDEX

(NDVI). A remotely sensed satellite-derived measure of the radiation absorbed by chlorophyll during plant photosynthesis that is a correlate of soil moisture, vegetation biomass and productivity.

OVER-WINTERING

The persistence of a virus in a location between one vector transmission season and the next: by persistence within surviving adult vectors themselves, within the juvenile stages of the vectors following trans-ovarial transmission or by prolonged/ persistent infection in viraemic or aviraemic vertebrate hosts.

PALAEARCTIC

One of the eight ecozones into which the world is divided, which extends across Europe, north Africa and north Asia, north of the tropics.

RUMINANT STREET

The 'corridor' between south Asia and Europe that is formed from the connected ruminant populations of Pakistan, Afganistan, Iran and Turkey.

SEROTYPE

An antigen or group of antigens that provokes a specific antibody response in the host that is distinct from those produced against other viruses of the same species.

SYNOPTIC WEATHER SYSTEMS

High- and low-pressure systems of the lower atmosphere operating at space and timescales approximately corresponding to those of mid-latitude depressions — spatial scales of several thousand kilometres and timescales of several days.

γδ T CELLS

A subset of T cells that are predominant in skin and mucosal tissues. They probably act as a first line of defence against infection and cancer and have immunoregulatory functions.

TRANSOVARIAL TRANSMISSION

The transmission of microorganisms between generations of hosts via the eggs (vertical transmission).

VECTOR COMPETENCE

The (innate) ability of a vector to acquire a pathogen and to successfully transmit it to another susceptible host.

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Purse, B., Mellor, P., Rogers, D. et al. Climate change and the recent emergence of bluetongue in Europe. Nat Rev Microbiol 3, 171–181 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1090

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