Clark, Freya N. and Solcà, Manuela da Silva and Fraga, Deborah Bittencourt Mothé and Brodskyn, Claudia Ida and Giorgi, Emanuele (2023) Understanding the relationship between the presence of vegetation and the spread of canine visceral leishmaniasis in Camaçari, Bahia State, Northeastern Brazil. Other. UNSPECIFIED.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease spread by female phlebotomine sandflies (Lutzomyia longipalpis). The most severe form of the disease is visceral leishmaniasis (VL), which can cause fever, hepatosplenomegaly, weight loss and pancytopenia. Domestic canines are the main reservoir for human cases in Brazil because they live in close proximity and can remain asymptomatic for long periods of time. Consequently, sole treatment of human cases will not contain the spread of the disease. Current methods of control have been unsuccessful, and thus a better understanding of the canine transmission and the effect of their environment is required. Vegetation is one of the main risk factors for VL that affects the distribution of phlebotomine sandflies. Using geostatistical models, we aim to further understand the effect of vegetation on canine VL in the community of Camaçari, northeastern Brazil. The risk due to vegetation is quantified using the average of the normalised vegetation index (NDVI) for all pixels within each dog’s home range. We found that an increase in NDVI of 0.1 led to an 1.21-fold increase in the odds of canine visceral leishmaniasis, on average, suggesting that coastal vegetation has a particularly strong correlation with VL.