Ranking of the Territory of Sochi by the Risk of Infection with HFRS Using the Method of Maximum Entropy
Authors: Chehvalova E. V. , Manin E. A. , Kulichenko A. N. 
Published: January 2024

Relevance. Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), due to the severity of the course and high mortality, poses a serious threat to the health of the population of both the city of Sochi and its guests. Therefore, in order to implement more effective and less economically costly anti-epidemic and preventive measures, it is very important to constantly monitor the activity of the natural focus of HFRS, as well as to have a clear idea of the territories most dangerous for the risk of infection with this infection.

Aims. Assessment of the epidemiological significance of the territory of the city of Sochi for the risk of infection with HFRS based on the maximum entropy method using a geographical information system.

Materials & Methods. Based on the application of the maximum entropy algorithm implemented in the MaxEnt program, as well as the ArcGIS 10 program.8. Ranking of the territory of the city of Sochi according to the risk of infection with HFRS was performed. The paper uses: data on positive epizootological findings (a total of 131) for 2016-2021, which were obtained from the Sochi branch of the Federal Medical Institution «Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Krasnodar Territory», the Sochi branch of the Federal Medical Institution «Black Sea Plague Station» of Rospotrebnadzor, as well as the Stavropol Plague Control Research Institute of the Rospotrebnadzor; materials on environmental conditions from the Biolclim data bank, vegetation index for 9 months (https://land.copernicus.eu/global/products/NDVI ). Preliminary preparation of the information was carried out using the ArcGIS 10 program.8. As a tool for building a training model, the MaxEnt program version 3.4.4 was used (https://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/maxent /).

Results and discussion. The practical implementation of the tasks was to obtain maps of the epidemiological significance of the territory for the risk of infection with HFRS by superimposing the points of occurrence of the species (reservoir and carrier of HFRS) on maps of abiotic environmental factors affecting its spread. The implementation of this work consisted of the sequential implementation of four main stages: the first – the collection, generalization and transformation of bioclimatic and epizootic-epidemiological data; the second – the selection of the most significant data for the construction of the model; the third – the ranking of the territory of the city. Sochi on the risk of the spread of HFRS using GIS; the fourth is the analysis of the data obtained. In the course of the work, a model was obtained that allows dividing the study area according to the degree of risk of infection with HFRS with a high degree of reliability and significant prognostic value.

Conclusions. The use of the model makes it possible to obtain new, more detailed data from a spatial point of view on the boundaries of potentially dangerous sites in the region in terms of GLPS. In particular, this applies to those territories where positive epizootological findings and cases of infection with HFRS have not been previously noted.