Kanenus Fufa Dararo

Title: Ecological hazard and human exposure mapping for marburg virus preparedness in southern ethiopia

Abstract

Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) still remains one of the significant concerns of public health in sub-Saharan Africa owing to the high rates of mortality as well as the frequent outbreaks that continue to occur, such as the recent one in Rwanda and Equatorial Guinea. While it is evident that the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) is the confirmed reservoir host of Marburg virus, spillover risk distributions remain unknown owing to poor surveillance efforts as well as their cryptic behavior. As an emergence occurs in the town of Jinka in South Ethiopia, there is a need for developing a spatial risk map that identifies risk interfaces for MVD spillovers. Using GIS-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology approaches, a total of seven environmental variables such as rainfall, NDVI, land use/land cover, drainage density, elevation, slope, and curvature were utilized for risk map development in identifying areas that are suited biologically for R. aegyptiacus. Additionally, human exposure indicators such as human density, proximity of human settlements, as well as accessibility for travel were also used for risk map development. Using AHP weighting, it is evident that the consistency ratio is low for both environmental layers (CR= 0.02) as well as human exposure indicators (CR= 0.006). From the result, it can be observed that 51.1% (31727 km2) of the zones are of high or very high suitability for R. aegyptiacus, with zones of moist mid-elevation with dense vegetation cover and complex drainage systems. When the risk layers are combined with human indicators, it is evident that 51.9% (31731 km2) of the study area is of high or very high risk zones that intersect with bat habitats. This research work presents a validated framework using One Health concepts for MVD spillovers that could be of great significance for risk reduction.