ASSOCIATION BETWEEN HOST ABUNDANCE, ANDES VIRUS ANTIBODIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES IN SOUTHERN ARGENTINA

FRANCISCO POLOP; VERÓNICA ANDREO; CECILIA PROVENSAL; RICCARDO DE FILIPPI; DELIA ENRÍA; NOEMI PINI; XIMENA PORCASI; MARCELO SCAVUZZO; MARCELO ABRIL; JAIME POLOP

Atenas

Conferencia; VIII International Conference on HFRS, HPS and Hantaviruses; 2010

Since 2003 to 2008 intensive ecological studies have been carried out in Cholila, Chubut(Argentina), to improve our understanding of Hantavirus host model. Our aim was to identifyenvironmental factors associated with high Oligoryzomys longicaudatus abundance andantibodies to Andes virus to develop predictive models of HPS risk for humans in this region.The rodent host records in each habitat were obtained by a system of trap lines with a total of258 sites of capture in brushland, 344 in forest and 290 in pasture. Thirty meteorological andenvironmental variables were extracted from different databases. A great list of variables valuesto characterize each trap site was obtained. A logistic regression model showed that highabundances would be associated with annual precipitation, brushland habitats and the summerNDVIs. On the other hand, the presence of antibody positive animals was significantlyexplained by high abundance, brushland habitats, annual precipitation, mean diurnal range,mean temperature of coldest quarter and precipitation of wettest quarter. The predictive modelsgenerated allowed us to improve the identification of sites with favorable environmentalconditions for O. longicaudatus that would increase the HPS risk for humans.ALOS and Landsat images was supplied by User Remote Sensing Access (URSA) andComisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE, Inst. Mario Gulich)