Over the last two decades, four successive research consortia (EDEN, EDENext, VBORNET, and VectorNet) aimed at improving knowledge, surveillance, and control of vector-borne diseases in Europe and neighboring countries. Among these, phlebotomine sand fly-borne diseases (SFBDs) including leishmaniasis and phleboviruses represent an important public health and veterinary concern. CLIMOS - Climate Monitoring and Decision Support Framework for Sand Fly-borne Diseases Detection and Mitigation with Cost-benefit and Climate-policy Measures – including 29 partners across 16 countries, aims to complement and build on previous efforts, bringing together researchers (including data, climate and environmental scientists), health-care and veterinary practitioners, technology platform designers and at-risk communities, to conduct innovative and applied research seeking to better prepare for current and future impacts of climate and environmental changes on human and animal health, using sand flies and the diseases they transmit as a model system.
CLIMOS seeks to provide better understanding of climate and environmental drivers of sand fly borne diseases, to reduce model uncertainties for better prognosis of their current and potential spread, and to provide socio-economic and risk assessments for a diversity of stakeholders. CLIMOS outputs will include public access interactive mapping and information services and recommendations for public and animal health, to assist future public (social, environmental, and financial) preparedness.
To achieve this, CLIMOS will undertake vector surveillance and related data collection for analysis and mathematical and numerical climate, environmental and health modelling, to improve public health climate services. To do so, CLIMOS will engage with the public at risk, national stake holders, and veterinary and public health institutions. It will seek to integrate EcoHealth and One Health approaches to produce new markers for animal and human infection risk, to detect and identify disease aetiology diversity across at-risk regions. Outcomes will include climate and environmental models of sand fly and SFBDs incidence and spread, and socioeconomic analysis of the losses and benefits for individuals and society, and SFBDs adaptation measures and EWS with decision support.
Five specific aims are at the core of the CLIMOS project:
1. To develop CLIMOS frameworks for prediction, fast screening, economic assessment, decision support, and sand fly surveillance, based on the ecosystem diversity, stakeholder needs and requirements.
2. To conduct data collection from cross-laboratory field studies in 14 countries, perform qualitative data collection, data analysis, and risk assessments, as inputs to policy-making and communication activities.
3. To develop decision support models for assessment of SFBD-related health and socio-economic vulnerabilities and to provide better quantification of SFBD-related losses, cumulative effects of climate measures, and climate change on SFBDs development and spread.
4. To systematically validate developed models, tools, and surveillance system, in 10 countries, using a proposed general public risk assessment method for policy-relevant useage.
5. To implement a comprehensive scientific and public dissemination policy and outreach programme to communicate project results to a broad audience; to standardize vector and pathogen surveillance sampling and identification; and to maximise big data ontologies.
