Understanding climate drivers of the current and future spread of sand flies and sand fly borne veterinary diseases in Portugal

We used the cross-correlation wavelet transform analysis to understand connections between the change of climate and climatic variables and the change in the number, appearance, and spread of sand flies and diseases they carry in Portugal. We were particularly interested to understand this dependance to be able to model the numbers and spread of canine leishmaniasis (CanL), a veterinary sand fly borne disease. Efficient prevention of CanL is critically dependent on our understanding of drivers of the disease and effective mechanisms of early warning for veterinary sector. Like other disease vectors, sand flies are vulnerable to climate change and are therefore perfect indicators of how local or even global climatic changes may affect their distribution and the infection incidence and spread of the diseases they transmit.To understand this dependance, we were using historical datasets from sand fly surveillance from Portugal and diagnostic data from Portuguese veterinary laboratories, as proxy records for the numbers of sick dogs. These two datasets form our animal health record. We cross-correlated it with the corresponding temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture data.Our results show a pattern of time lags between the changes in hydro-meteorological variables and changes in numbers of sand flies and numbers of CanL cases. We hypothesize that these patterns relate to meteorological conditions during the winter and spring that precedes each sand fly season. We will present and discuss these preliminary results. Funding: The PLANET4HEALTH consortium is funded by the European Commission grant 101136652. The five Horizon Europe projects, GO GREEN NEXT, MOSAIC, PLANET4HEALTH, SPRINGS, and TULIP, form the Planetary Health Cluster. The CLIMOS consortium is co-funded by the European Commission grant 101057690 and UKRI grants 10038150 and 10039289. The six Horizon Europe projects, BlueAdapt, CATALYSE, CLIMOS, HIGH Horizons, IDAlert, and TRIGGER, form the Climate Change and Health Cluster.