Abstract
Nephropathia epidemica (NE, Swedish: sorkfeber) is a large public health issue especially in northern Sweden, causing both individual suffering for the single patient but also considerable costs for society. NE is caused by the Puumala virus and involves the bank vole as its reservoir and vector species. In 2006-2007, there was an all-time-high with 2875 reported cases of NE in Sweden, following and coinciding with peak densities of the bank vole. Recently, in particular spring densities of the bank vole have recovered after having been declining in the 1980s and remaining comparatively low until the early 2000s. In the proposed 3-yr PhD project ZONE, we study how the prevalence of the virus in bank voles as well as the risk of transmission and emergence of NE a) vary during periods of different bank vole densities and dynamics, b) are affected by the vole?s predators and c) winter climate and landscape structure. In the analyses, we take advantage of the time series of bank voles in the county of Västerbotten, trapped in 1981-present and corresponding time series of landscape changes. We will study the occurrence of Puumala virus and antibodies to the virus in ca. 8000 bank vole specimens from periods with low and high vole densities. If successful, ZONE improves the temporal and spatial accuracy of predictive models for outbreaks of NE and our results will be used as an early warning system for alerting the public of times and places at risk of contracting NE.
Sweden