Predicting spatio-temporal population patterns of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease pathogen.

The causative bacterium of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, expanded from an undetected human pathogen into the etiologic agent of the most common vector-borne disease in the United States over the last several decades. Systematic field collections of the tick vector reveal increases in the geographic range and prevalence of B. burgdorferi-infected ticks that coincided with increases in human Lyme disease incidence across New York State.We investigate the impact of environmental features on the population dynamics of B. burgdorferi. Analytical models developed using field collections of nearly 19,000 nymphal Ixodes scapularis and spatially and temporally explicit environmental features accurately explained the variation in the nymphal infection prevalence of B. burgdorferi across space and time.Importantly, the model identified environmental features reflecting landscape ecology, vertebrate hosts, climatic metrics, climate anomalies and surveillance efforts that can be used to predict the biogeographical patterns of B. burgdorferi-infected ticks into future years and in previously unsampled areas.Forecasting the distribution and prevalence of a pathogen at fine geographic scales offers a powerful strategy to mitigate a serious public health threat. Synthesis and applications. A decade of environmental and tick data was collected to create a model that accurately predicts the infection prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi over space and time. This predictive model can be extrapolated to create a high-resolution risk map of the Lyme disease pathogen for future years that offers an inexpensive approach to improve both ecological management and public health strategies to mitigate disease risk.

Spatial and temporal expansions of Eastern equine encephalitis virus and phylogenetic groups isolated from mosquitoes and mammalian cases in New York State from 2013 to 2019.

Surveillance for the emerging infectious disease Eastern equine encephalitis, and its causative virus in mosquitoes, continued within New York State from 2013 to 2019. There were increases in geographic area and number of consecutive years, with cases in four mammalian species, and virus in 11 mosquito species. The first cases in a goat and in an emu were reported. The first detection of virus in Aedes cinereus was reported. Virus in phylogenetic group NY4 was isolated from a horse and from mosquitoes 6 kilometers and 13 days apart in 2013. Phylogenetic groups NY4 and NY5 were found 15 days apart in two towns 280 kilometers distant in 2013. Within four adjacent counties there was a pattern of overlap, where four had NY5, two adjacent counties had NY6, two adjacent counties had NY7, and one county had NY5, NY6, and NY7, reducible to a Euler diagram. Virus in phylogenetic group NY5, found within an 11-kilometer wide area in New York State, was related to FL4 found in Florida 1,398 kilometers distant. This was consistent with a phylogenetic group originating in Florida, then being moved to a specific location in New York State, by migratory birds in consecutive years 2013 and 2014.