Sandfly surveillance and investigation of Leishmania spp. DNA in sandflies in Kosovo

Vaselek, Slavica/0000-0002-9105-7138; OZBEL, YUSUF/0000-0001-8335-1997; Alishani, Mentor/0000-0002-6853-4792WOS: 000534417200001PubMed: 32438501In the past decade, leishmaniasis seems to be re-emerging in Balkan countries. There are serious implications that Kosovo is a visceral leishmaniasis endemic region with autochthonous transmission; nevertheless, surveillance of vectors, reservoirs or the disease is not yet established. Gaining knowledge about sandfly vector species is a prerequisite for the development of a monitoring and control plan in the future. After a long gap in research of over 70 years, sandfly studies in Kosovo were resumed in 2014. During this presence/absence study, nine sandfly species were detected: Phlebotomus papatasi, Ph. perfiliewi, Ph. tobbi, Ph. neglectus, Ph. simici, Ph. balcanicus, Ph. alexandri, Ph. mascittii and Sergentomyia minuta. Three species are new with regard to the fauna of Kosovo - Ph. alexandri, Ph. balcanicus and Ph. mascittii. Besides increased diversity, changes in the number of collected specimens and distribution range of species were recorded, with Ph. neglectus being the most dominant species with the widest distribution. Testing of randomly chosen females for Leishmania spp. DNA resulted the in detection of L. tropica in a specimen of Ph. neglectus. the presence of numerous vector species in the sandfly fauna of Kosovo pose a threat for the re-emergence of vector-borne diseases. Therefore, continuous surveillance is recommended with regular updates on vector distribution and abundance.EurNegVec COST ActionEuropean Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) [TD1303]; VectorNet project - European Food Safety Authority (EFSA); European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) contract [OC/FSA/AHAW/2013/02-FWC1]; European Virus Archive goes Global project (EVAg) - European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [653316]; Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia [III43007, TR31084]; European Commission, Horizon 2020 Infrastructure Infravec2 projectEuropean CommissionThe authors express their gratitude to Vid Srdic who designed the map for this manuscript. the work of Slavica Vaselek, Yusuf Ozbel, Bulen Alten and Dusan Petric was carried out under the frame of EurNegVec COST Action TD1303. the work was supported by VectorNet project funded by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) contract OC/FSA/AHAW/2013/02-FWC1; European Virus Archive goes Global project (EVAg) funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 653316); and projects III43007 and TR31084 financed by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia and European Commission, Horizon 2020 Infrastructure Infravec2 project (https://infravec2.eu)

Sandfly surveillance and investigation of Leishmania spp. DNA in sandflies in Kosovo

In the past decade, leishmaniasis seems to be re-emerging in Balkan countries. There are serious implications that Kosovo is a visceral leishmaniasis endemic region with autochthonous transmission; nevertheless, surveillance of vectors, reservoirs or the disease is not yet established. Gaining knowledge about sandfly vector species is a prerequisite for the development of a monitoring and control plan in the future. After a long gap in research of over 70 years, sandfly studies in Kosovo were resumed in 2014. During this presence/absence study, nine sandfly species were detected: Phlebotomus papatasi, Ph. perfiliewi, Ph. tobbi, Ph. neglectus, Ph. simici, Ph. balcanicus, Ph. alexandri, Ph. mascittii and Sergentomyia minuta. Three species are new with regard to the fauna of Kosovo - Ph. alexandri, Ph. balcanicus and Ph. mascittii. Besides increased diversity, changes in the number of collected specimens and distribution range of species were recorded, with Ph. neglectus being the most dominant species with the widest distribution. Testing of randomly chosen females for Leishmania spp. DNA resulted the in detection of L. tropica in a specimen of Ph. neglectus. The presence of numerous vector species in the sandfly fauna of Kosovo pose a threat for the re-emergence of vector-borne diseases. Therefore, continuous surveillance is recommended with regular updates on vector distribution and abundance

AIMSurv: first pan-European harmonized surveillance of Aedes invasive mosquito species of relevance for human vector-borne diseases

Human and animal vector-borne diseases, particularly mosquito-borne diseases, are emerging or re-emerging worldwide. Six Aedes invasive mosquito (AIM) species were introduced to Europe since the 1970s: Aedes aegypti, Ae. albopictus, Ae. japonicus, Ae. koreicus, Ae. atropalpus and Ae. triseriatus. Here, we report the results of AIMSurv2020, the first pan-European surveillance effort for AIMs. Implemented by 42 volunteer teams from 24 countries. And presented in the form of a dataset named "AIMSurv Aedes Invasive Mosquito species harmonized surveillance in Europe. AIM-COST Action. Project ID: CA17108". AIMSurv2020 harmonizes field surveillance methodologies for sampling different AIMs life stages, frequency and minimum length of sampling period, and data reporting. Data include minimum requirements for sample types and recommended requirements for those teams with more resources. Data are published as a Darwin Core archive in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility- Spain, comprising a core file with 19,130 records (EventID) and an occurrences file with 19,743 records (OccurrenceID). AIM species recorded in AIMSurv2020 were Ae. albopictus, Ae. japonicus and Ae. koreicus, as well as native mosquito species

Mosquito alert: leveraging citizen science to create a GBIF mosquito occurrence dataset

Este artículo contiene 13 páginas, 2 figuras.The Mosquito Alert dataset includes occurrence records of adult mosquitoes collected worldwide in 2014–2020 through Mosquito Alert, a citizen science system for investigating and managing disease-carrying mosquitoes. Records are linked to citizen science-submitted photographs and validated by entomologists to determine the presence of five targeted European mosquito vectors: Aedes albopictus, Ae. aegypti, Ae. japonicus, Ae. koreicus, and Culex pipiens. Most records are from Spain, reflecting Spanish national and regional funding, but since autumn 2020 substantial records from other European countries are included, thanks to volunteer entomologists coordinated by the AIM-COST Action, and to technological developments to increase scalability. Among other applications, the Mosquito Alert dataset will help develop citizen science-based early warning systems for mosquito-borne disease risk. It can also be reused for modelling vector exposure risk, or to train machine-learning detection and classification routines on the linked images, to assist with data validation and establishing automated alert systems.This work was supported by: • 2021–2022 Fair Computational Epidemiology (FACE); Plataforma Temática Interdisciplinar PTI+ Salud Global, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC); Grant No.: N/A. • 2020–2025 Human-Mosquito Interaction Project: Host-vector networks, mobility and the socio-ecological context of mosquito-borne disease; European Research Council (ERC); Grant No.: 853271. • 2020–2021 Strengthening Barcelona’s Defenses Against Disease-Vector Mosquitoes: Automatically Calibrated Citizen-Based Surveillance, Barcelona Ciència; Ajuntament de Barcelona, Institut de Cultura; Grant No.: BCNPC/00041. • 2020–2024 VEO: Versatile Emerging infectious disease Observatory, H2020 SC1-BHC-13-2019; European Commission (EC); Grant No.: 874735. • 2020–2025 Preparing for vector-borne virus outbreaks in a changing world: a One Health Approach; Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA); Grant No.: NWA/00686468. • 2019–2021 Big Mosquito Bytes: Community-Driven Big Data Intelligence to Fight Mosquito-Borne Disease; Fundació “La Caixa”, Health Research 2018 “la Caixa” Banking Foundation; Grant No.: HR19-00336. • 2018–2022 Aedes Invasive Mosquitoes (AIM), COST ACTION OC-2017-1-22105; European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST); Grant No.: CA17108. • 2018 Mosquito Alert: programa para investigar y controlar mosquitos vectores de enfermedades como el Dengue, el Chikungunya y el Zika; Fundació “La Caixa”; Grant No.: N/A. • 2017–2019 Plataforma Integral per al Control de l’Arbovirosis a Catalunya (PICAT); Departament de Salut, Programa PERIS 2016–2020, Generalitat de Catalunya; Grant No.: 00466. • 2016–2018 Ciència ciutadana per a la millora de la gestió i els models predictius de dispersió i distribució real de mosquit tigre a la Província de Girona; Diputació de Salut de Girona (DIPSALUT); Grant No.: N/A. • 2016 Nuevas herramientas de participación en ciencia ciudadana: laboratorios de validación y cocreación para AtrapaelTigre.com; Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT); Grant No.: FCT-15-9515. • 2016–2017 Mosquito Alert: programa para investigar y controlar mosquitos vectores de enfermedades como el Dengue, el Chikungunya y el Zika; Fundació “La Caixa”; Grant No.: N/A. • 2016–2017 Ciència ciutadana per a la millora de la gestió i els models predictius de dispersió i distribució real de mosquit tigre a la Província de Girona; Diputació de Salut de Girona (DIPSALUT); Grant No.: N/A. • 2015–2016 Citizens-based early warning systems for invasive species and disease vectors: The case of the Asian Tiger mosquito; Fundació “La Caixa” and Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals (CREAF); Grant No.: N/A. • 2014–2016 Invasión del mosquito tigre en España: Salud pública y cambio global; Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Plan Estatal I+D+I; Grant No.: CGL2013-43139-R. • 2014 Diseño e implementación de un sistema ciudadano de alerta y seguimiento del mosquito tigre: ciencia en sociedad (Atrapa el Tigre 2.0); Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT); Grant No.: FCT-13-701955.Peer reviewe