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Journal of Infectious Diseases & Therapy |ISSN: 2332-0877 | Volume 6

June 25-26, 2018 | Vancouver, Canada

International Conference on

Infection, Disease Control and Prevention

Microbial Pathogenesis & Infectious Diseases

Exploring the climatic and land use factors behind the 1999 Vancouver Island outbreak of

Cryptococcus gattii

Emily Acheson

University of British Columbia, Canada

hy do infectious diseases emerge where they do? Climatic and land use changes are considered the two major factors,

with increasing debate around which factor is more important. In Canada, a fungus called

Cryptococcus gattii

emerged

on Vancouver Island in 1999 for unknown reasons, capable of causing a potentially fatal respiratory and neurological disease

upon inhalation of its spores. The research project proposed here aims to investigate the environmental factors behind the

emergence of

C. gattii

on Vancouver Island using geographic information systems and remote sensing. Environmental data

(e.g. seasonal temperature, precipitation, etc.) at 30-m resolution for Vancouver Island were collected from the ClimateBC

program for 1984-2012. Annual land cover and forest harvest data, as well as elevation, were also used. Georeferenced

C. gattii

occurrence records provided by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control were used to determine the corresponding

environmental data at their time of collection and in the years prior to isolation. This oral presentation will show the results of

these analyses, focusing on common environmental traits of areas where

C. gattii

was isolated from the environment. How did

these areas (i.e. grid cells) change in the 10-15 years prior to

C. gattii

’s isolation in that area?

J Infect Dis Ther 2018, Volume 6

DOI: 10.4172/2332-0877-C2-042