BACKGROUND With the increase in unprecedented and unpredictable disease outbreaks due to human-driven environmental changes in recent years, we need new analytical tools to map and predict the spatial distribution of emerging infectious diseases and identify the biogeographic drivers underpinning their emergence. The aim of the study was to identify and compare the local and global biogeographic predictors such as landscape and climate that determine the spatial structure of leptospirosis and Buruli Ulcer (BU). METHODS We obtained 232 hospital-confirmed leptospirosis (2007-2017) cases and 236 BU cases (1969-2017) in French Guiana. We performed non-spatial and spatial Bayesian regression modeling with landscape and climate predictor variables to characterize the spatial structure and the environmental drivers influencing the distribution of the two diseases. RESULTS Our results show that the distribution of both diseases is spatially dependent on environmental predictors such as elevation, topological wetness index, proximity to cropland and increasing minimum temperature at the month of potential infection. However, the spatial structure of the two diseases caused by bacterial pathogens occupying similar aquatic niche was different. Leptospirosis was widely distributed across the territory while BU was restricted to the coastal riverbeds. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows that a biogeographic approach is an effective tool to identify, compare and predict the geographic distribution of emerging diseases at an ecological scale which are spatially dependent to environmental factors such as topography, land cover and climate.

中文翻译：

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新出现的人类水生传染病：使用贝叶斯空间模型的比较生物地理学方法。


背景技术近年来，由于人类驱动的环境变化导致前所未有的和不可预测的疾病暴发增加，我们需要新的分析工具来绘制和预测新出现的传染病的空间分布，并确定支撑其出现的生物地理驱动因素。该研究的目的是确定并比较当地和全球的生物地理预测因子，例如决定钩端螺旋体病和布鲁里溃疡 (BU) 空间结构的景观和气候。方法 我们收集了法属圭亚那 232 例医院确诊的钩端螺旋体病病例（2007-2017 年）和 236 例 BU 病例（1969-2017 年）。我们利用景观和气候预测变量进行了非空间和空间贝叶斯回归建模，以描述影响两种疾病分布的空间结构和环境驱动因素。结果我们的结果表明，这两种疾病的分布在空间上取决于环境预测因素，例如海拔、拓扑湿度指数、靠近农田以及潜在感染月份最低温度的增加。然而，由占据相似水生生态位的细菌病原体引起的两种疾病的空间结构不同。钩端螺旋体病在全港广泛分布，而钩端螺旋体病则仅限于沿海河床。结论我们的研究表明，生物地理学方法是在生态尺度上识别、比较和预测新发疾病地理分布的有效工具，这些疾病在空间上依赖于地形、土地覆盖和气候等环境因素。