Zoning the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan as to the risk of rabies among various categories of animals.

This paper presents the zoning of the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan with respect to the risk of rabies outbreaks in domestic and wild animals considering environmental and climatic conditions. The national database of rabies outbreaks in Kazakhstan in the period 2003-2014 has been accessed in order to find which zones are consistently most exposed to the risk of rabies in animals. The database contains information on the cases in demes of farm livestock, domestic animals and wild animals. To identify the areas with the highest risk of outbreaks, we applied the maximum entropy modelling method. Designated outbreaks were used as input presence data, while the bioclim set of ecological and climatic variables, together with some geographic factors, were used as explanatory variables. The model demonstrated a high predictive ability. The area under the curve for farm livestock was 0.782, for domestic animals -0.859 and for wild animals - 0.809. Based on the model, the map of integral risk was designed by following four categories: negligible risk (disease-free or favourable zone), low risk (surveillance zone), medium risk (vaccination zone), and high risk (unfavourable zone). The map was produced to allow developing a set of preventive measures and is expected to contribute to a better distribution of supervisory efforts from the veterinary service of the country.

Revealing spatio-temporal patterns of rabies spread among various categories of animals in the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2010-2013.

This study estimated the basic reproductive ratio of rabies at the population level in wild animals (foxes), farm animals (cattle, camels, horses, sheep) and what we classified as domestic animals (cats, dogs) in the Republic of Kazakhstan (RK). It also aimed at forecasting the possible number of new outbreaks in case of emergence of the disease in new territories. We considered cases of rabies in animals in RK from 2010 to 2013, recorded by regional veterinary services. Statistically significant space-time clusters of outbreaks in three subpopulations were detected by means of Kulldorff Scan statistics. Theoretical curves were then fitted to epidemiological data within each cluster assuming exponential initial growth, which was followed up by calculation of the basic reproductive ratio R0. For farm animals, the value of R0 was 1.62 (1.11-2.26) and for wild animals 1.84 (1.08- 3.13), while it was close to 1 for domestic animals. Using the values obtained, an initial phase of possible epidemic was simulated in order to predict the expected number of secondary cases if the disease were introduced into a new area. The possible number of new cases for 20 weeks was estimated at 5 (1-16) for farm animals, 17 (1-113) for wild animals and about 1 in the category of domestic animals. These results have been used to produce set of recommendations for organising of preventive and contra-epizootic measures against rabies expected to be applied by state veterinarian services.