Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 114, Issue 30, Pages 8041-8046Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1701777114
Keywords
Hantaan virus; spillover to humans; wildlife reservoir; time-series data; climate change
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Funding
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2016YFA0600104]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81673234]
- health industry's special research funds for public welfare projects [201502020]
- Shaanxi Provincial Projects for Serious Disease Prevention and Control [0617-15240415]
- Science and Technology Project of Shaanxi Province [2014A7, 2013K12-04-02]
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Hantavirus, a rodent-borne zoonotic pathogen, has a global distribution with 200,000 human infections diagnosed annually. In recent decades, repeated outbreaks of hantavirus infections have been reported in Eurasia and America. These outbreaks have led to public concern and an interest in understanding the underlying biological mechanisms. Here, we propose a climate-animal-Hantaan virus (HTNV) infection model to address this issue, using a unique dataset spanning a 54-y period (1960-2013). This dataset comes from Central China, a focal point for natural HTNV infection, and includes both field surveillance and an epidemiological record. We reveal that the 8-y cycle of HTNV outbreaks is driven by the confluence of the cyclic dynamics of striped field mouse (Apodemus agrarius) populations and climate variability, at both seasonal and interannual cycles. Two climatic variables play key roles in the ecology of the HTNV system: temperature and rainfall. These variables account for the dynamics in the host reservoir system and markedly affect both the rate of transmission and the potential risk of outbreaks. Our results suggest that outbreaks of HTNV infection occur only when climatic conditions are favorable for both rodent population growth and virus transmission. These findings improve our understanding of how climate drives the periodic reemergence of zoonotic disease outbreaks over long timescales.
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