Abstracts - Posters
The Geosimulation of West Nile Virus Infection on the Basis Of Climate: A Tool for Risk Management in Public Health
Mondher Bouden1, Bernard Moulin, Pierre Gosselin, Christian Back, Bernard Doyon, Daniel Gingras and Germain Lebel
1Université Laval
mondher.bouden@ift.ulaval.ca
Since 1999, the West Nile virus (WNV) has become a public health problem to manage. Its expansion has lead to surveillance systems being established in North America. These systems, however, cannot forecast the probable spread of the virus in the future. Such a forecast, if proven reliable, would permit preventative measures to be put into place at the right moment and at the level of expected risk. It is within this context that the Multi-Agent Geo-Simulation approach has been retained to develop a system that can plausibly simulate the behaviours of mosquitoes and corvidae that are linked to the spread and transmission of WNV. This simulation is expected to take place in a virtual mapping environment representing a large territory (the province of Quebec) and according to various climate scenarios and larvicide treatments. A preliminary study carried out in 2004 determined the feasibility of the project. In fact, we were able to explain, from a global perspective, the indicator phenomena related to the WNV transmission. After establishing certain hypotheses, we were also able to develop a conceptual model that describes the population dynamics of the mosquito (genus Culex) and the common crow, which were the main actors in our simulation of the future, as well as their interaction. We are now in the second phase of the project, which involves refining our system's architecture in order to proceed with its development over the coming months. An operational system will be available at the end of 2005.
2005-04-06 |
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