Auburn researchers are a part of a research team that was formed in 2012 to West Nile Virus (WNV). In Nov 2016, the team released a report on WNV causes titled, “Climatic, ecological, and socioeconomic factors associated with West Nile virus incidence in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.,” and Auburn faculty were co-authors in this report. Recent hurricanes have produced ideal conditions for WNV, and this research explains ways the risk of WNV can be reduced.
In 2012, the US experienced one of its worst WNV outbreaks with 5,674 reported cases. The states California and Texas had the most cases, but Atlanta was also another hot spot for WNV.
“2012 there had been a big outbreak, there had been a number of people died across the South, Texas was hit the hardest,” said Graeme Lockaby, “It had something to do with climate, when you see a wet winter and a dry spring, those conditions are conducive to [WNV].”
Lockaby is the Associate Dean for Research in Auburn’s School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences and has a Ph.D in Agronomy. Lockaby is the leading author of the WNV report. He and other researchers began to do fieldwork in Atlanta soon after the 2012 outbreak to more precisely determine the causes for the WNV outbreak.
WNV is a disease that originated in Africa but spread to the US in 1999, and it is spread to humans by mosquitos. 8 out of 1 people have no reaction to WNV, but a small percentage of people can suffer from high fever and nerve damage.
Some of Auburn schools involved with the research are the College of Veterinary Medicine, the School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences, and the College Agriculture. They have also received help from socioeconomic experts. “It’s a very diverse set of researchers,” said Lockaby
Other groups that help with the research include the bird conservation group, Audubon, the US Forest Services, and the University of Georgia.
Lockaby said that they knew before their research began that WNV thrives in urban areas where there is more unclean water. “That’s conducive to Culex mosquitos, that’s the genus that carries West Nile.”
Lockaby also said that one reason Atlanta is a prime spot for WNV because it has a high population of Corvids or the Crow family. Corvids are prone to carry WNV which can then be spread to humans via mosquitos
The research team discovered more factors that can lead to WNV outbreaks including housing built before 1960 and particular forest types that harbor corvid bird populations. Lockaby said that another result of their research is that it provided more proof that dirty water is a health hazard to people.
Navideh Noori said that because their research discovered particular environmental factors that increased the risk of WNV, now WNV can outbreaks can be predicted for other areas with similar conditions. Noori, who had a master’s in water resource engineering, contributed to the research project while working on her Ph.D. at Auburn.
“If you know it in advance, it can help to control [WNV],” Noori said, “And that’s what we tried to do in this study.”
More cases of WNV are beginning to occur in the US since hurricanes have hit the continental US. “The flood waters recede, but you still have a lot of pools of dirty water in various places, the weather is staying warm, those are conditions that are conducive to, again, mosquito breeding,” said Lockaby.
“The effect would be with a delay,” said Noori, “If you have hurricane this month, you may not see an increased number of mosquitos in the same month.”
Nicole Castaneda, who is a graduate student involved with the WNV research, said that one way to reduce WNV risk is to keep sewer systems from overflowing during floods as mosquitos thrive in dirty water.
Noori said that removing standing water is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of WNV.
“A big component would be the outreach, making the locals citizenry, the people [in hurricane areas] more aware of what the risk factors are, and getting them to help eliminate those” Lockaby said.
Castaneda said that herself and others are still conducting research and fieldwork in the Atlanta area in order to better predict future WNV outbreaks.
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