African horse sickness is one of the devastating health threats to the equid family. Mostly donkeys, mule and zebra are believed to be reservoirs; they are less susceptible to the disease (Zientara et al., 2015). Efforts have been made to develop effective prevention and control approaches. These control approaches are focused on three components, namely, quarantine, vector control and vaccination. In support of these approaches, vaccine development efforts have been implemented to develop effective vaccines successfully. Besides, vector control methods mostly focused on the confinement of animals in the active season of vectors have been practiced.
This is the first of its kind attempt to model the suitability niche for AHSv from retrospective outbreak records to the best of our knowledge. The model comes in line with previous knowledge of the disease distribution territories known for its occurrence. The ecological niche model trained with the ensemble modeling had perfect accuracy (1.0) with ROC evaluation metrics. Besides, it had 0.99 with TSS and 0.95 in Kappa accuracy evaluation, indicating correctly classifying suitable and unsuitable territories of the world for AHSv. The ensemble model's accuracy metrics were better than individual models indicating the ensemble approach was the best choice than using individual models alone. Bioclimatic variables like Solar radiation, mean maximum temperature, mean precipitation of the year, altitude and precipitation seasonality contributed 36.83%, 17.1%, 14.34%, 7.61%, and 6.4%, respectively. These variables alone account for more than 80% share of the model. Temperature variables are known to determine the survival of vectors responsible for disease transmission. The tropical area had moderately hot weather conditions coupled with higher precipitation to facilitate rain, increasing humidity levels; it is ideal for insects' reproduction. Furthermore, suitable niche identification to identify suitable territories for Culicoides has been delineated (Diarra et al., 2018; Leta et al., 2019; Onyango et al., 2015). Even though these ENMs are outstanding works identifying favorable territories, they fail to incorporate vectors other than the Culicoides genera. Other species involved as a vector for AHSv transmission have been reported recently. Some of them include Mosquitoes of the Aedes, Culex and Anopheles genera, ticks (Hyalomma and Rhipicephalus) (Zientara et al., 2015).
African countries like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Malawi are identified as suitable niches for the virus. Humid sub-Saharan Africa is very suitable for any disease vectors due to prolonged rain with favorable temperatures. These variables, coupled with the presence of susceptible horses and maintaining zebras, accelerates outbreaks to be endemic and, in some cases, hyperendemic outbreaks in the African continent. Furthermore, the Middle East (Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia and territories) were found marginally suitable for the virus. As these areas are known to harbor a large population of Arabian horses, they can be primarily affected by the disease. Besides, disease-free areas were also depicted as suitable in this model, indicating the need for the strict prohibition of introducing positive animals in these countries can result in maintained disease cases for a prolonged period as these areas are suitable for disease, i.e., suitable for any possible vectors capable of transmitting the virus, primarily midges of the Culicoides genera.
OIE lists disease-free countries like India, Australia, and the south Americas (Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia) were found suitable areas for the virus. The Indian subcontinent's southern borders were highly suitable for the virus due to suitable bioclimatic conditions for the thriving of the vectors. Furthermore, most of Australia and brazil were also suitable for the virus, which can be due to suitable weather conditions similar to African countries in terms of temperature and humidity. Even though some territories are free, yet their territories were suitable for the diseases. If the virus reaches these territories and is maintained in any possible vector, the virus can persist for prolonged periods affecting the equine population.
Future projections from 2020 to 2040 and 2040 to 2060 indicated that the suitable territories would diminish than the current distribution gradient. As reasonable global warming will be imminent in the coming years, this argument seems unlikely to decrease infectious diseases like AHSv. However, the possible reason can be that temperature will increase, affecting the dynamics of vectors. Besides, for an outbreak to occurs, moderate temperature along with higher precipitation rates should exist. However, in the future, the conditions may not exist as rainfall will decrease. In contrast, the temperature rises scenarios favor the vector dynamics negatively, directly diminishing vector-borne infectious diseases.
The model was magnificent in every evaluation metric employed and depicted suitable territories previously known with the disease to occur. However, it had its limitations. Among them, the inability to incorporate outbreak occurrence data other than African countries and predict for wider area are prominent. ENMs for wider areas come with under (over) estimation of suitability level. Besides, background pseudo absence sampling from non-occurrence locations using SRE, may result in inaccurate metrics. Due to these reasons, we advise readers to consider these limitations whenever they want to use this model.