The expansion of global air travel and seaborne trade overcomes geographic barriers to insect disease vectors, enabling them to move great distances in short periods of time. Here we apply a coupled human–environment framework to describe the historical spread of Aedes albopictus , a competent mosquito vector of 22 arboviruses in the laboratory. We contrast this dispersal with the relatively unchanged distribution of Anopheles gambiae and examine possible future movements of this malaria vector. We use a comprehensive database of international ship and aircraft traffic movements, combined with climatic information, to remap the global transportation network in terms of disease vector suitability and accessibility. The expansion of the range of Ae. albopictus proved to be surprisingly predictable using this combination of climate and traffic data. Traffic volumes were more than twice as high on shipping routes running from the historical distribution of Ae. albopictus to ports where it has established in comparison with routes to climatically similar ports where it has yet to invade. In contrast, An. gambiae has rarely spread from Africa, which we suggest is partly due to the low volume of sea traffic from the continent and, until very recently, a European destination for most flights.
The situation of dengue in the world can be summarized as follows: 2,5 billions persons at risk, 60 millions cases per year, and 30 000 deaths per year. The four dengue serotype...
Approximately 460 base pairs (bp) of DNA sequence that included the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) and some flanking 5.8S and 28S ribosomal RNA coding regions were co...
Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne, human viral disease in many tropical and sub-tropical areas. In India the disease has been essentially described in the form of case...
SUMMARY Dengue fever, a very old disease, has reemerged in the past 20 years with an expanded geographic distribution of both the viruses and the mosquito vectors, increased epi...
Cartographic approaches to burden estimation provide a globally consistent measure of malaria morbidity of known fidelity, and they represent the only plausible method in those ...
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