Winter Steven N, Fernández María Del Pilar, Clancey Erin, Garrison Kyle, Mansfield Kristin, Wild Margaret A
Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology, Washington State University, P.O. Box 647040, Pullman, WA 99164, USA.
Paul G. Allen School for Global Health, Washington State University, P.O. Box 647090, Pullman, WA 99164, USA.
Transbound Emerg Dis. 2023 Dec 14;2023:6685108. doi: 10.1155/2023/6685108. eCollection 2023.
Treponeme-associated hoof disease (TAHD) is an emerging disease of conservation concern in elk () in the Northwest USA. Elk with TAHD exhibit characteristic hoof lesions that are often accompanied by lameness and limping. The gold standard approach traditionally used for infectious disease surveillance is laboratory confirmation, which for TAHD is a histologic examination of abnormal elk hooves submitted by wildlife agencies. Diagnostic evaluation affords certainty in confirming TAHD; however, these examinations are also labor and resource intensive, and therefore, not conducive to the collection of sufficient data for epidemiologic investigations. In response, two community science (CS) surveillance strategies have been implemented in Washington State: public observations of limping elk from a web-based reporting tool and hunter reports of hoof abnormalities on harvested elk. Surveillance using CS strategies can be implemented widely and may be useful for describing broad distributional patterns of TAHD, despite their unknown relationship to laboratory-confirmed cases. We described and compared the spatial-temporal distribution of TAHD in western Washington game management units (GMU) using the two CS strategies to assess congruences and discrepancies between observed patterns. We used spatial scan statistics to identify possible core-affected and newly emerging areas at the GMU level. Lastly, we contrasted CS observations against confirmed case data to examine possible delays in TAHD detection and co-occurrence among surveillance strategies. We found public observations of limping elk often predated TAHD confirmations in GMUs by several years, while hunter-reported abnormalities predated confirmations in GMUs by several months. High co-occurrence between the presence of apparent and confirmed cases under different surveillance strategies further supports the use of CS sources. This study capitalizes on wide-reaching CS data to provide new and complementary epidemiological information that can help guide future surveillance, management, and research efforts for this novel elk hoof disease.
密螺旋体相关蹄病（TAHD）是美国西北部麋鹿群中一种新出现的、受到保护关注的疾病。患TAHD的麋鹿表现出特征性的蹄部病变，常伴有跛行。传统上用于传染病监测的金标准方法是实验室确诊，对于TAHD来说，就是对野生动物机构提交的异常麋鹿蹄进行组织学检查。诊断评估能确定TAHD；然而，这些检查也耗费人力和资源，因此不利于收集足够的数据用于流行病学调查。作为回应，华盛顿州实施了两种社区科学（CS）监测策略：通过基于网络的报告工具对跛行麋鹿进行公众观察，以及猎人报告所捕获麋鹿的蹄部异常情况。尽管CS策略与实验室确诊病例的关系尚不清楚，但使用这些策略进行监测可以广泛实施，可能有助于描述TAHD的广泛分布模式。我们使用这两种CS策略描述并比较了华盛顿西部狩猎管理单元（GMU）中TAHD的时空分布，以评估观察到的模式之间的一致性和差异。我们使用空间扫描统计方法来确定GMU层面可能的核心受影响区域和新出现区域。最后，我们将CS观察结果与确诊病例数据进行对比，以检查TAHD检测可能出现的延迟以及不同监测策略之间的共现情况。我们发现，公众对跛行麋鹿的观察往往比GMU中TAHD确诊早几年，而猎人报告的异常情况比GMU中确诊早几个月。不同监测策略下明显病例和确诊病例之间的高共现率进一步支持了CS来源的使用。本研究利用广泛的CS数据提供了新的补充性流行病学信息，有助于指导针对这种新型麋鹿蹄病的未来监测、管理和研究工作。
