Abstract
Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) is a significant health problem in Sonora, Mexico. The tick vector, Rhipicephalus sanguineus, feeds almost exclusively on domestic dogs that, in this region, also serve as the reservoir for the tick-borne pathogen, Rickettsia rickettsii. A process-based mathematical model of the life cycle of R. sanguineus was developed to predict combinations of insecticidal dog collars and long-lasting insecticidal wall treatments resulting in suppression of indoor tick populations. Because of a high burden of RMSF in a rural community near the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo, a test area was treated with a combination of insecticidal dog collars and long-lasting insecticidal wall treatments from March 2018 to April 2019, with subsequent reduction in RMSF cases and deaths. An estimated 80% of the dogs in the area had collars applied and 15% of the houses were treated. Data on tick abundance on walls and dogs, collected during this intervention, were used to parameterize the model. Model results show a variety of treatment combinations likely to be as successful as the one carried out in the test community.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 263 |
Journal | Insects |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: The model development and simulation study was funded by the National Science Foundation (award 2019609).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
Keywords
- Dog collars
- Insecticidal wall treatment
- Rhipicephalus sanguineus
- Rickettsia rickettsi
- Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
- Tick control
- Tick-borne disease