Spatial Quantification of the Population Exposed to Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii Species Complexes in Europe: Estimating the Immunocompetent and HIV/AIDS Patients Under Risk

AbstractCryptococcus is an important fungal pathogen worldwide, causing serious clinical manifestations that can affect immunocompetent patients and can be particularly severe for immunocompromised patients. TheCryptococcus gattii s.s. (AFLP4/VGI),Cryptococcus tetragattii (AFLP/VGIV),Cryptococcus neoformans, andCryptococcus deneoformans have been isolated from both clinical and environmental sources in Europe. We aim to quantify the people in Europe and the entire Mediterranean area who are under risk associated with each of the three fungal pathogens in a spatially explicit way, generating a series of maps and population statistics per country. Niche modeling was applied to estimate the potential distribution of each fungal pathogen, then these models were overlapped with a map of population density to estimate risk levels. The potential number of people per risk level and per country was quantified using a map of population count per pixel. Prevalence of HIV per country was also included in the analysis to quantify the HIV ‐infected population under potential risk. People under risk associated with exposure toC. gattii species (C. gattii s.s. andC. tetragattii) reached 137.65 million, whereas those exposed toC. neoformans andC. deneoformans were 268.58 and 360.78 million people, respectively. More than a half million HIV ‐infected patients are exposed to each of the two species of theC. neoformans species complex, and more than 200,000 to theC. gattii species complex. T...
Source: Risk Analysis - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Original Research Article Source Type: research