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. 2017 Oct 30;7(1):14291.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14727-9.

Recent loss of closed forests is associated with Ebola virus disease outbreaks

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Recent loss of closed forests is associated with Ebola virus disease outbreaks

Jesús Olivero et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a contagious, severe and often lethal form of hemorrhagic fever in humans. The association of EVD outbreaks with forest clearance has been suggested previously but many aspects remained uncharacterized. We used remote sensing techniques to investigate the association between deforestation in time and space, with EVD outbreaks in Central and West Africa. Favorability modeling, centered on 27 EVD outbreak sites and 280 comparable control sites, revealed that outbreaks located along the limits of the rainforest biome were significantly associated with forest losses within the previous 2 years. This association was strongest for closed forests (>83%), both intact and disturbed, of a range of tree heights (5->19 m). Our results suggest that the increased probability of an EVD outbreak occurring in a site is linked to recent deforestation events, and that preventing the loss of forests could reduce the likelihood of future outbreaks.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
3D representations of two models of favorability (F) for the occurrence of EVD outbreaks. (A) Model describing the spatio-temporal pattern (STP) of outbreaks between 2001 and 2014. (B) Model based on forest loss (FL) for the period 2006 and 2014. Yellow points indicate outbreak locations; red points represent random locations with no report of EVD outbreaks. Compared to random locations, favorability based on FL is significantly higher for seven of the nine outbreaks that occurred after 2005. The map of Africa shows the area represented by axes x and y; country borders are outlined in grey; the green area represents rainforests (GlobCover version 2.1 database for 2005–2006, © ESA/ESA Globcover 2005 Project, led by MEDIAS-France/POSTEL).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Capacity of discrimination (Area Under the Curve, AUC) and classification [sensitivity, specificity, Correct Classification Rate (CCR) and Kappa] of the six models defining the favorability of the occurrence of EVD outbreaks due to forest loss (FL). The x-axis is the starting year of the time period considered in the models.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Models based on the basal spatial favorability (BSF) for EVD. Point colors indicate favorability (ranging 0–1). (A) The explanatory variable in the model for the period 2002–2014 is the environmental/zoogeographical favorability for the occurrence of Ebola virus in the wild (12). (B) The explanatory variable in the model for the period 2006–2014 is the rural human population density. Maps were generated using ArcGIS 10.3 (http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Venn diagrams displaying the results of variation partitioning analyses of a model combining spatio-temporal pattern (STP), forest loss (FL) and basal spatial favorability (BSF) for EVD outbreaks, for the periods 2002–2014 and 2006–2014. (A) Analysis focused on the complete Ebola-virus area (EVA). (B) Analysis focused on the range of favorability values overlapping with EVD outbreaks (EVDA).

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