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Arboviruses transmitted mainly by Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti and Ae. albopictus, including dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses, and yellow fever virus in urban settings, pose an escalating global threat. Existing risk maps, often hampered by surveillance biases, may underestimate or misrepresent the true distribution of these diseases and do not incorporate epidemiological similarities despite shared vector species. We address this by generating new global environmental suitability maps for Aedes-borne arboviruses using a multi-disease ecological niche model with a nested surveillance model fit to a dataset of over 21,000 occurrence points. This reveals a convergence in suitability around a common global distribution with recent spread of chikungunya and Zika closely aligning with areas suitable for dengue. We estimate that 5.66 (95% confidence interval 5.64-5.68) billion people live in areas suitable for dengue, chikungunya and Zika and 1.54 (1.53-1.54) billion people for yellow fever. We find large national and subnational differences in surveillance capabilities with higher income more accessible areas more likely to detect, diagnose and report viral diseases, which may have led to overestimation of risk in the United States and Europe. When combined with estimates of uncertainty, these suitability maps can be used by ministries of health to target limited surveillance and intervention resources in new strategies against these emerging threats.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-58609-5

Type

Journal

Nature communications

Publication Date

04/2025

Volume

16

Addresses

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Dynamics, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.

Keywords

Animals, Humans, Aedes, Yellow fever virus, Chikungunya virus, Dengue, Yellow Fever, Global Health, Chikungunya Fever, Zika Virus, Zika Virus Infection, Mosquito Vectors