Wind-Blown Mosquitoes and Introduction of Japanese Encephalitis into Australia

Abstract

Backtrack simulation analysis indicates that wind-blown mosquitoes could have traveled from New Guinea to Australia, potentially introducing Japanese encephalitis virus. Large incursions of the virus in 1995 and 1998 were linked with low-pressure systems that sustained strong northerly winds from New Guinea to the Cape York Peninsula.

Keywords

• emerging disease
• Japanese encephalitis
• Culex annulirostris
• Australia
• modeling
• migration