Speaker
Description
Since 2020, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b has spread rapidly and widely, affecting a growing diversity of avian species across five continents and increasingly spilling over into mammals. Addressing this challenge requires characterising both where environmental conditions are suitable for viral circulation and where the wild bird reservoir poses the greatest spillover risk to poultry. These represent two complementary but distinct modelling problems.
Using an ecological niche modelling approach, we investigate which environmental predictors are associated with the post-2020 surge in H5N1 and H5Nx cases, whether the ecological niche of HPAI has shifted over time, and whether models trained on pre-2020 data retain predictive transferability to the current epidemiological situation \cite{dupas2025global}. Models were fitted separately for wild and domestic bird occurrences across two periods (2015–2020 and 2020–2022). Post-2020, intensive chicken population density emerged as the dominant predictor, alongside cultivated vegetation, suggesting a transition toward farm-to-farm transmission dynamics rather than wild bird-driven spillover.
We further develop a modelling framework based on reservoir distribution, combining a systematic meta-analysis of AIV prevalence in wild birds \cite{dupas2026patterns} with species-richness maps weighted by host abundance and prevalence, providing a basis for spatially explicit introduction-risk modelling.
Bibliography
@article{dupas2025global,
title={Global risk mapping of highly pathogenic avian influenza {H5N1} and {H5Nx} in the light of epidemic episodes occurring from 2020 onward},
author={Dupas, M.-C. and Vincenti-Gonzalez, M. F. and Dhingra, M. and Guinat, C. and Vergne, T. and Wint, W. and Hendrickx, G. and Marsboom, C. and Gilbert, M. and Dellicour, S.},
journal={eLife},
volume={14},
year={2025},
publisher={eLife Sciences Publications Limited}
}
@article{dupas2026patterns,
title={{Patterns of Avian Influenza Virus detection from active surveillance in wild birds: A systematic review and meta-analysis}},
author={Dupas, M.-C. and Falcucci, A. and Pittiglio, C. and Roche, X. and Cinardi, G. and Delgado, A. and Seck, I. and Dhingra, M. and Gilbert, M.},
journal={One Health},
volume={22},
pages={101338},
year={2026},
publisher={Elsevier}
}
