Toward a Mechanistic Understanding of Environmentally Forced Zoonotic Disease Emergence: Sin Nombre Hantavirus

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Scott Carver, University of Tasmania; James N Mills, Emory University; Cheryl A Parmenter, The University of New Mexico; Robert R Parmenter, US National Park Service; Kyle S Richardson, Massey University; Rachel L Harris, University of Tasmania; Richard J Douglass, University of Tasmania; Amy J Kuenzi, University of Tasmania; Angela D Luis, University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation
• Language: English
• Date: 2015-07-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biv047
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: BioScience
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 7
• Start Page: 651
• End Page: 666
• Grant/Funding Information: This project was supported by grants from the National Center for Research Resources (no. 5P20RR016455-11), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (no. 8 P20 GM103474-11) from the National Institutes of Health, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, Georgia, through cooperative agreement.; AL is additionally supported by the Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) program of the Science and Technology Directorate (US Department of Homeland Security) and the Fogarty International Center (National Institutes of Health). Funding for the original New Mexico field data collection was provided by the Sevilleta LTER Program (NSF DEB 9411976 and DEB 0080529), the National Institutes of Health (DHHSPHS/NIAID PO1 A1 39780–02), and the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC U50/CCU613416). The findings and conclusions presented here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the funding agencies.
• Keywords: human–reservoir interactions; Peromyscus maniculatus; emerging infectious disease; hantavirus pulmonary syndrome; Sin Nombre virus
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery

Abstract

Understanding the environmental drivers of zoonotic reservoir and human interactions is crucial to understanding disease risk, but these drivers are poorly predicted. We propose a mechanistic understanding of human-reservoir interactions, using hantavirus pulmonary syndrome as a case study. Crucial processes underpinning the disease's incidence remain poorly studied, including the connectivity among natural and peridomestic deer mouse host activity, virus transmission, and human exposure. We found that disease cases were greatest in arid states and declined exponentially with increasing precipitation. Within arid environments, relatively rare climatic conditions (e.g., El Niño) are associated with increased rainfall and reservoir abundance, producing more frequent virus transmission and host dispersal. We suggest that deer mice increase their occupancy of peridomestic structures during spring-summer, amplifying intraspecific transmission and human infection risk. Disease incidence in arid states may increase with predicted climatic changes. Mechanistic approaches incorporating reservoir behavior, reservoir-human interactions, and pathogen spillover could enhance our understanding of global hantavirus ecology, with applications to other directly transmitted zoonoses.