Model-informed risk assessment for Zika virus outbreaks in the Asia-Pacific regions

Recently, Zika virus (ZIKV) has been recognized as a significant threat to global public health. The disease was present in large parts of the Americas, the Caribbean, and also the western Pacific area with southern Asia during 2015 and 2016. However, little is known about the factors affecting the transmission of ZIKV. We used Gradient Boosted Regression Tree models to investigate the effects of various potential explanatory variables on the spread of ZIKV, and used current with historical information from a range of sources to assess the risks of future ZIKV outbreaks. Our results indicated that the probability of ZIKV outbreaks increases with vapor pressure, the occurrence of Dengue virus, and population density but decreases as health expenditure, GDP, and numbers of travelers. The predictive results revealed the potential risk countries of ZIKV infection in the Asia-Pacific regions between October 2016 and January 2017. We believe that the high-risk conditions would continue in South Asia and Australia over this period. By integrating information on eco-environmental, social-economical, and ZIKV-related niche factors, this study estimated the probability for locally acquired mosquito-borne ZIKV infections in the Asia-Pacific region and improves the ability to forecast, and possibly even prevent, future outbreaks of ZIKV.