Environmental change increases the transmission risk of visceral leishmaniasis in central China around the Taihang mountains
Issued Date
2025-12-01
Resource Type
eISSN
1476069X
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-105004187730
Journal Title
Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source
Volume
24
Issue
1
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source Vol.24 No.1 (2025)
Suggested Citation
Meng Z., Fan P.W., Fan Z.X., Chen S., Jiang H., Shi Y., Yao L., Yao J.Y., Wang Y.P., Hao M.M., Xie W.Q., Bai Y.Q., Wang Q., Sun K., Xie X.L., Zhou J.W., Jiang D., Zheng C.J., Wu H., Ma T., Ding F.Y. Environmental change increases the transmission risk of visceral leishmaniasis in central China around the Taihang mountains. Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source Vol.24 No.1 (2025). doi:10.1186/s12940-025-01180-9 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/110026
Title
Environmental change increases the transmission risk of visceral leishmaniasis in central China around the Taihang mountains
Author's Affiliation
Yale School of the Environment
Aerospace Information Research Institute
Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nuffield Department of Medicine
Guizhou Normal University
Yale University
Tibet University
Key Laboratory of Satellite Remote Sensing and Application
Aerospace Information Research Institute
Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nuffield Department of Medicine
Guizhou Normal University
Yale University
Tibet University
Key Laboratory of Satellite Remote Sensing and Application
Corresponding Author(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
Background: Visceral leishmaniasis is a neglected life-threatening sandfly-borne disease, which brings a growing public health threat in Central China around the Taihang Mountains. However, the spatiotemporal dynamics of visceral leishmaniasis in the local community and the potential driving factors remain poorly understood. Methods: We analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of new reported visceral leishmaniasis cases in the region from 2006 to 2023, and combined random forest modeling approach with environmental covariates to identify the main influencing factors related to transmission risk of the disease. Results: Our results show that there was a total number of 800 reported human visceral leishmaniasis cases, affecting 29 cities, and 113 counties across the region, exhibiting a geographic expansion of the disease during this period, especially in Shanxi province. Two high-risk clusters were identified in the study. Environmental change-related factors, including standardized precipitation deviation, forest cumulative change ratio, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) cumulative change, played important roles in increasing the transmission risk of visceral leishmaniasis, with their relative contributions summing up to 66.17%. Conclusions: Our findings provide a better understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics and driving factors of visceral leishmaniasis recurrence across Central China around the Taihang Mountains, which underscore prevention and control measures should be taken immediately to reduce the risk.