The influence of landscape structure on the dispersal pattern of yellow fever virus in the state of Sao Paulo

Abstract

Man-made changes to the landscape play a crucial role in altering the epidemiologic patterns of infectious diseases, mainly as a result of pathogen spillover. Sylvatic yellow fever is ideally suited to modeling of this phenomenon as the risk of transmission of the disease as well as its circulation and dispersal are associated with forest fragmentation. In this study we investigated the temporal dispersal pattern of yellow fever virus (YFV) by means of confirmed cases of epizootics in non-human primates in municipalities in the state of Sao Paulo where there was no recommendation for vaccination in 2017. We analyzed the resistance to dispersal associated with different classes of land use and the geographic distances between the different locations where epizootics were recorded. The model that best explained the temporal dispersal pattern of YFV in the study area indicated that this was influenced by the geographic distance between collection locations and by the permeability of the forest edges (150 m) at the interface with the following core areas: Water, Agricultural, Non-Forest Formation and Forestry. Water, Agricultural, Urban and Forest core areas and the interfaces between the latter two formed important barriers to circulation of the virus. These findings indicate that fragmentation of vegetation tends to decrease the time taken for pathogens to spread, while conservation of forest areas has the opposite effect.