Marta Martínez-Avilés

Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria | INIA · Animal Health Research Centre

The front-wave velocity of African swine fever (ASF) virus spread is depicted through a retrospective spatial and temporal analyses of wild boar outbreaks from Jan. 2014 to Jan. 2022 in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Eastern Poland—regions responsible for more than 50% of all wild boar cases in the EU. The study uses empirical semivariograms in a u...

Infectious wildlife diseases that circulate at the interface with domestic animals pose significant threats worldwide and require early detection and warning. Although animal tracking technologies are used to discern behavioural changes, they are rarely used to monitor wildlife diseases. Common disease-induced behavioural changes include reduced ac...

African swine fever (ASF) is a pandemic viral disease that poses a major threat to the health of wild and domestic pigs, national economies, and subsistence livelihoods around the world [...]

African swine fever (ASF) is currently threatening the global swine industry. Its unstoppable global spread poses a serious risk to Spain, one of the world's leading producers. Over the past years, there has been an increased global burden of ASF not only in swine but also swine products. Unfortunately, many pigs are not diagnosed before slaughter...

African swine fever virus (ASFV) genotype II has been present in wild boar in the European Union since 2014. Control measures have reduced the incidence of the ASF, but highly virulent as well as attenuated ASFV strains continue to circulate. We present the intraherd epidemiological parameters of low and highly virulent ASFV in wild boar from exper...

African swine fever (ASF) is a viral hemorrhagic disease affecting domestic and wild suids, with catastrophic socioeconomic impact worldwide. In the European scenario, wild boar (Sus scrofa) actively contributes to the maintenance and spread of the disease. In this study, we applied a multivariate clustering method to define ecoregions in the weste...

In September 2018, classical swine fever (CSF) reemerged in Japan after more than a quarter of a century. After the frst no-tifcation on a pig farm, wild boars positive for CSF were found continuously in the surrounding area. Gifu was the frst prefecture in Japan to disseminate oral vaccines to wild boars in March 2019, with vaccines spread to appr...

Since the first confirmation of African swine fever (ASF) in domestic pig farms in South Korea in September 2019, ASF continues to expand and most notifications have been reported in wild boar populations. In this study, we first performed a spatio-temporal cluster analysis to understand ASF spread in wild boar. Secondly, generalized linear logisti...

African swine fever (ASF) is one of the most critical diseases in the pig industry. In Asia, 15 countries have already reported an outbreak as of November 22, 2021. In 2021, China reported the genotype II lower virulent ASF virus (ASFV) and the emergence of genotype I ASFV. ASF is generally known as a contagious and lethal disease, but if chronic i...

African swine fever (ASF) is currently the most threatening disease for domestic and wild pigs worldwide. Wild boar has been the main affected species in all EU countries except for Roma-nia, where most notifications occur in domestic pigs. The spread of ASF in wild boar is challenging to control; risk factors are harder to identify and establish t...

African swine fever (ASF) is a devastating infectious disease of pigs that is threatening the global swine industry at present. The current spread of ASF in Europe and its recent incursion into Germany pose a serious risk to Spain, one of the world’s leading pig producers. A quantitative stochastic risk assessment model was developed to estimate th...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00155.].

Salmonella is one of the most important foodborne pathogens worldwide. Its main reservoirs are poultry and pigs, in which infection is endemic in many countries. Spain has one of the largest pig populations in the world. Even though Salmonella infection is commonly detected in pig farms, its spatial distribution at the national level is poorly unde...

African swine fever (ASF) is one of the most important emerging transboundary diseases of pigs, causing trade restrictions, and a health impact on susceptible pigs. Nine countries in the continental European Union (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belgium, Romania, and Hungary) have been affected by ASF from 2014 to 201...

With the current trend in animal health surveillance toward risk-based designs and a gradual transition to output-based standards, greater flexibility in surveillance design is both required and allowed. However, the increase in flexibility requires more transparency regarding surveillance, its activities, design and implementation. Such transparen...

With the current trend in animal health surveillance toward risk-based designs and a gradual transition to output-based standards, greater flexibility in surveillance design is both required and allowed. However, the increase in flexibility requires more transparency regarding surveillance, its activities, design and implementation. Such transparen...

With the current trend in animal health surveillance toward risk-based designs and a gradual transition to output-based standards, greater flexibility in surveillance design is both required and allowed. However, the increase in flexibility requires more transparency regarding surveillance, its activities, design and implementation. Such transparen...

Non-typhoid salmonellosis is a common and problematic foodborne zoonotic disease in which pork and pork products can be an important potential source of infection. To prevent this disease, important efforts to monitor the situation in the main source, livestock, are conducted in most developed countries. In the European Union, European Food Safety...

This study reviews non-typhoid Salmonella (NTS)-related hospitalisations at National level in Spain between 2010 and 2015. NTS hospitalisations were obtained from the National Registry of Hospitalisations. A descriptive analysis of the hospitalisations was performed, including hospitalisation rates (HR) and case-fatality rates (CFR%) calculation. F...

Non-typhoid salmonellosis is a common and problematic foodborne zoonotic disease in which pork and pork products can be an important potential source of infection. In order to prevent this disease important efforts to monitor the situation in the main source, livestock, are conducted in most developed countries. In the European Union EFSA and ECDC...

The current situation of African Swine Fever (ASF) disease in the European Union (EU) represents a serious economic risk for the EU pig industry. Since its introduction in the EU in 2014 until now, the disease has been well controlled in domestic pigs and most cases (95%) have occurred in wild boar (WB). From the first notification in WB in Lithuan...

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a major disease of domestic and wild small ruminants across Africa and Asia. The development of effective decision-support tools for PPR control needs to include the development of models for defining improved disease control methods. Data from serological surveys in sheep, goats, cattle and buffaloes were used t...

The current situation of African Swine Fever (ASF) epidemic in continental Europe represents a serious economic risk for the European pig industry. It is well known that both domestic pigs and wild boar are involved in the ASF spread, but the exact mechanism of the domestic–wildlife interface remains under research. A spatio-temporal kriging analys...

During the past decade, African swine fever (ASF) has spread from the Caucasus region to eastern European Union countries affecting domestic pig and wild boar populations. In order to avert ASF spread, mitigation measures targeting both populations have been established. However, despite these efforts, ASF has been reported in thirteen different co...

Early detection of infectious diseases can substantially reduce the health and economic impacts on livestock production. Here we describe a system for monitoring animal activity based on video and data processing techniques, in order to detect slowdown and weakening due to infection with African swine fever (ASF), one of the most significant threat...

Highly contagious and emerging diseases cause significant losses in the pig producing industry worldwide. Rapid and exact acquisition of real-time data, like body temperature and animal movement from the production facilities would enable early disease detection and facilitate adequate response. In this study, carried out within the European Union...

West Nile fever is an emergent disease in Europe. The objective of this study was to conduct a predictive risk mapping of West Nile Virus (WNV) circulation in Spain based on historical data of WNV circulation. Areas of Spain with evidence of WNV circulation were mapped based on data from notifications to the surveillance systems and a literature re...

Animal health surveillance enables the detection and control of animal diseases including zoonoses. Under the EU-FP7 project RISKSUR, a survey was conducted in 11 EU Member States and Switzerland to describe active surveillance components in 2011 managed by the public or private sector and identify gaps and opportunities. Information was collected...

To enable wide-spread acceptance and adoption of risk-based surveillance approaches by stakeholders it is essential to provide those designing such systems with science-based frameworks guiding them through the systematic process of design and evaluation. The RISKSUR project has addressed this particular need through the development of integrated s...

Late detection of emergency diseases causes significant economic losses for pig producers and governments. As the first signs of animal infection are usually fever and reduced motion that lead to reduced consumption of water and feed, we developed a novel smart system to monitor body temperature and motion in real time, facilitating the early detec...

Europe has experienced an increasing number of emerging vector-borne diseases and the recrudescence or re-emergence of others. Global warming offers suitable conditions for arthropod proliferation, some of which can be competent vectors of such diseases. With the increased risk of introduction of potentially infected animals because of shortened tr...

Animal health surveillance plays a key role in early detecting the introduction of diseases, facilitating their eradication and demonstrating disease freedom. Therefore, it is recognised as a global public good to support improved animal and global public health. In recent years, country-specific risks such as the risk of introduction from other co...

In this globalized world, the spread of new, exotic and re-emerging diseases has become one of the most important threats to animal production and public health. This systematic review analyses conventional and novel early detection methods applied to surveillance. In all, 125 scientific documents were considered for this study. Exotic (n = 49) and...

Background The recent occurrence and spread of African swine fever (ASF) in Eastern Europe is perceived as a serious risk for the pig industry in the European Union (EU). In order to estimate the potential risk of ASF virus (ASFV) entering the EU, several pathways of introduction were previously assessed separately. The present work aimed to integr...

The presence of African swine fever (ASF) in the Caucasus region and Russian Federation has increased concerns that wild boars may introduce the ASF virus into the European Union (EU). This study describes a semi-quantitative approach for evaluating the risk of ASF introduction into the EU by wild boar movements based on the following risk estimato...

Transboundary animal diseases can have very severe socio-economic impacts when introduced into new regions. The history of disease incursions into the European Union suggests that initial outbreaks were often initiated by illegal importation of meat and derived products. The European Union would benefit from decision-support tools to evaluate the r...

Sources of data for the release proxy indicators, assumptions and uncertainty of the data. (DOCX)

Details of exposure proxy indicators, parameters, sources of data, assumptions and uncertainty of the data. (DOCX)

Association between increase in country release risk score and values of proxy indicator’s weights. The data shows the overall release risk category for all European Union member states for the original release assessment model, the risk score percentile at which an increase in risk category is observed, and the values and percentiles of proxy indi...

Association between decrease in country release risk score and values of proxy indicator’s weights. The data shows the overall release risk category for all European Union member states for the original release assessment model, the risk score percentile at which a decrease in risk category is observed, and the values and percentiles of proxy indic...

Detailed results of the release assessment. The data shows for all European Union member states the detail of the release proxy indicators’ risk scores and the overall release risk score, as well as the percentage contribution of each proxy indicator’s risk score to the overall release risk score. (DOCX)

Association between change in country exposure risk score and values of proxy indicator’s weights. The data shows the overall exposure risk category for all European Union member states for the original exposure assessment model, the risk score percentile at which a change in risk category is observed, and the values and percentiles of proxy indica...

Detailed results of the exposure assessment. The data shows for all European Union member states the detail of the exposure proxy indicators’ risk scores and the overall exposure risk score, as well as the percentage contribution of each proxy indicator’s risk score to the overall exposure risk score. (DOCX)

Tick-borne pathogens can spread easily through the movements of infested birds. An important example is viruses that pose a threat to humans and that are carried in Hyalomma ticks that move from Africa into south-western Europe. This study evaluates the probability of arrival of migrating birds from Africa into Spain and the environmental suitabili...

Wild boar population size in the Iberian Peninsula was estimated using hunting bag statistics from Spain and Portugal. Density was estimated assigning the wild boar population size to the “potential resources” or suitable habitats categorized by their importance to provide food and/or shelter to wild boars. Land uses were selected from CORINE, the...

The introduction and rapid spread of West Nile virus (WNV) into new areas such as the American continent, associated also with the severity of the disease in humans and equids has increased concerns regarding the need to better prevent and control future WNV incursions. WNV outbreaks in equids usually occur under specific climatic and environmental...

To predict the risk of incursion of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) in livestock in Europe introduced through immature Hyalomma marginatum ticks on migratory birds under current conditions and in the decade 2075-2084 under a climate-change scenario. A spatial risk map of Europe comprising 14 282 grid cells (25 × 25 km) was constructe...

HPAI virus has caused significant economic losses in the poultry industry. Backyard and outdoor poultry farms (BOPF) can play an important role in the spread of the disease. A spatio-temporal model has been developed to identify areas and periods at higher risk of HPAI spread in BOPF and applied on a Spanish region. Six risk factors were considered...

The recent incursion and spread of African swine fever virus (ASFV) in the Russian Federation and Caucasus region, close to European Union (EU) borders, have increased the concerns regarding the probability of ASFV introduction into the EU. There are many potential routes of ASFV entry into EU, but here we specifically aimed to assess the probabili...

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a major disease of domestic and wild small ruminants across Africa and Asia. The development of effective decision-support tools for PPR control needs to include the development of models for defining improved disease control methods. Data from serological surveys in sheep, goats, cattle and buffaloes were used t...

A dynamic population model of Hyalomma marginatum, the vector of several pathogens in the western Palearctic, was developed to simulate effects of temperature and water vapour deficit (VD) on tick survival, development rates and seasonality. Base tick survival and development rates were obtained from laboratory-controlled experiments or calculated...

Early detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in its natural reservoirs is a prerequisite for preventing disease spread to humans. The risk of introduction of H5N1 HPAI was assessed in order to design a risk-based surveillance system in Spain. Areas at highest risk for H5N1 HPAI followed a northeast-southwest direction, with two signi...

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has devastating consequences for the poultry industry of affected countries. Control of HPAI has been impaired by the role of wildlife species that act as disease reservoirs and as a potential source of infection for domestic populations. The reproductive ratio (R₀) of HPAI was quantified in nine clusters of...

In October 2009, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) was isolated for the first time in poultry in Spain. Sequencing analysis revealed that it was an H7N7 HPAIV. The progenitors of H7 HPAIV strains involved in recent European poultry outbreaks were simultaneously circulating in wild birds. The infected Spanish farm is located close to a...

A large number (n=591) of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) outbreaks have been reported in wild birds of Europe from October 2005 through January 2009. Consequently, prevention and control strategies have been implemented in response to the outbreaks and considerable discussion has taken place regarding the need for implementing...

The objective of this study was to identify environmental characteristics of European Ramsar wetlands, which are natural habitats for waterbirds, that could have contributed as risk factors for H5N1 HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) in water birds (2006-2009). Ramsar wetlands in which H5N1 outbreaks were reported were considered infected (po...

Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is one of the most widespread of all medically important arboviruses with ticks of the Hyalomma spp. serving as the main vectors. Infection of livestock by CCHFV serves as a route of exposure to humans, as a reservoir of disease and as a route of importation. This study discusses the pathways and data...

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) subtype H5N1 continues to circulate across Eurasia and Africa since its unprecedented rapid spread in 2005. Diffusion by wild bird movements has been evidenced in the European Union in 2006 and 2007. Spain is an important wintering quarter for aquatic birds from northern latitudes, so identifying the critica...

Desde la aparición a nivel mundial del fenómeno denominado despoblamiento masivo de las colmenas, se han intensificado los estudios para determinar cuáles son las causas que lo producen. Así mismo, la preocupación por el estado sanitario de las colmenas ha ido en aumento debido a que existe un mercado apícola más competitivo económicamente, y a que...

Fourteen European Union (EU) countries have been affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) of the subtype H5N1 since 2005. Many of the H5N1 HPAI cases have been identified in wild bird populations from aquatic habitats. The objective of this contribution was to assess the association between the H5N1 HPAI incidence, estimated by a co-kri...

Bluetongue virus (BTV), a member of the Orbivirus genus, has contributed to great economical losses in countries across the Mediterranean basin. Although BTV has an African origin, it has been reported in the South of Europe since 1924 when it was first detected in Cyprus. After this first Bluetongue (BT) outbreak, many others followed in most Medi...