Vector-borne diseases (VBDs), such as dengue, Zika, West Nile virus (WNV) and tick-borne encephalitis, account for substantial human morbidity worldwide and have expanded their range into temperate regions in recent decades. Climate change has been proposed as a likely driver of past and future expansion, however, the complex ecology of host and vector populations and their interactions with each other, environmental variables and land-use changes makes understanding the likely impacts of climate change on VBDs challenging. We present an environmentally driven, stage-structured, host–vector mathematical modelling framework to address this challenge. We apply our framework to predict the risk of WNV outbreaks in current and future UK climates. WNV is a mosquito-borne arbovirus which has expanded its range in mainland Europe in recent years. We predict that, while risks will remain low in the coming two to three decades, the risk of WNV outbreaks in the UK will increase with projected temperature rises and outbreaks appear plausible in the latter half of this century. This risk will increase substantially if increased temperatures lead to increases in the length of the mosquito biting season or if European strains show higher replication at lower temperatures than North American strains.

登革热、寨卡病毒、西尼罗河病毒 (WNV) 和蜱传脑炎等媒介传播疾病 (VBD) 是全球人类发病率较高的原因，并且近几十年来已将其范围扩大到温带地区。气候变化已被认为是过去和未来扩张的可能驱动因素，然而，宿主和媒介种群的复杂生态及其相互之间的相互作用、环境变量和土地利用变化使得了解气候变化对VBD可能产生的影响具有挑战性。我们提出了一个环境驱动的、阶段结构的、主向量数学建模框架来应对这一挑战。我们应用我们的框架来预测英国当前和未来气候下西尼罗河病毒爆发的风险。西尼罗河病毒是一种蚊媒虫媒病毒，近年来在欧洲大陆扩大了其传播范围。我们预测，虽然未来两到三十年的风险仍将保持在较低水平，但西尼罗河病毒在英国爆发的风险将随着预计气温上升而增加，并且在本世纪下半叶爆发似乎是有可能的。如果温度升高导致蚊子叮咬季节延长，或者欧洲菌株在较低温度下比北美菌株表现出更高的复制性，则这种风险将大幅增加。