Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T10:05:31.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Possible windborne spread of myxomatosis to England in 1953

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2009

R. F. Sellers
R. F. Sellers
Affiliation:
4 Pewley Way, Guildford, Surrey, GUI 3PY
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

An analysis of the meteorological conditions showed that the first outbreaks of myxomatosis in S.E.England in 1953 could have resulted from wind carriage of insects infected with myxoma virus from northern France. South-easterly winds on the night 11–12 August would have carried the insects 120–160 km from the Départements of Nord, Pas de Calais and Somme across the English Channel to near Edenbridge, Kent. The flight would have taken 6·5–8·5 h at wind speeds of 15–22 km h−1. On the night 11–12 August, temperatures increased with height (inversion) up to 500 m; at ground level temperature was around 19 °C and at 500 m was 25 °C. Insects would have travelled up to the top of the inversion arriving on 12 August as the inversion declined. Two or possibly three generations of infection would have taken place before the disease was seen around the middle of September 1953. The most likely insect was the mosquito Anopheles atroparvus which breeds along the coastal marshes of England and northern France and which has been shown experimentally and in the field to transmit myxoma virus mechanically.

Type
Research Article
Information
Epidemiology & Infection , Volume 98 , Issue 1 , February 1987 , pp. 119 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

References

REFERENCES

Andrewes, C. H. (1967). Evolution in action: myxomatosis. In The Natural History of Viruses, pp. 149–161. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Andrewes, C. H., Muirhead-Thomson, R. C. & Stevenson, J. P. (1965). Laboratory studies on Anopheles atroparvus in relation to myxomatosis. Journal of Hygiene 54, 478–486.Google Scholar
Armour, C. J. & Thompson, H. V. (1955). Spread of myxomatosis in the first outbreak in Great Britain. Annals of Applied Biology 43, 511–518.Google Scholar
Donaldson, A. I., Gloster, J., Harvey, L. D. J. & Deans, D. H. (1982). Use of prediction models to forecast and analyse air borne spread during the foot-and-mouth-disease outbreaks in Brittany, Jersey and the Isle of Wight in 1981. Veterinary Record 110, 53–57.Google Scholar
Fenner, F. & Marshall, I. D. (1957). A comparison of the virulence for European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) of strains of myxoma virus recovered in the field in Australia, Europe and America. Journal of Hygiene 55, 149–191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenner, F. & Ratcliffe, F. N. (1965). Myxomatosis. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Gloster, J. (1982). Risk of airborne spread of foot-and-mouth disease from the Continent to England. Veterinary Record 111, 290–295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gloster, J., Sellers, R. F. & Donaldson, A. I. (1982). Long distance transport of footand-mouth-disease virus over the sea. Veterinary Record 110, 47–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenbank, D. O., Schaefer, G. W. & Rainey, R. C. (1980). Spruce budworm (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) moth flight and dispersal: new understanding from canopy observation, radar and aircraft. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada, No.110.Google Scholar
Hurst, G. W. (1969). Meteorological aspects of insect migrations. Endeavour 28, 77–81.Google Scholar
Jacotot, H., Toumanoff, C, Vallée, A. & Virat, B. (1954). Transmission expérimentale de la myxomatose au lapin par Anopheles maculipennis atroparvuset Anopheles stephensi. Annales de l'Institut Pasteur 87, 477–485.Google Scholar
Jacotot, H., Vallée, A. & Virat, B. (1958). Etude expérimentale de la myxomatose. Bulletin de l'Académie Vétérinaire de France 31, 269–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, C. G. (1969). Migration and Dispersal of Insects by Flight. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Joubert, L. & Monnet, P. (1975). Vérification expérimentale du rôle des Simulies (Tetisimulium bezziiCorti 1914 et Odegmia group ornatum) dans la transmission du virus myxomateux en Haute Provence. Revue de Médicine Vétérinaire 126, 617–634.Google Scholar
Joubert, L., Oudar, J., Mouchet, J. & Hannoun, C. (1967). Transmission de la myxomatose par les moustiques en Carmargue. Rôle preéminent de Aedes caspius et des Anopheles du groupe maculipennis. Bulletin de l'Académie Vétérinaire de France 40, 315–322.Google Scholar
Lockley, R. M. (1954). The European rabbit flea, Spilopsyllus cuniculi as a vector of myxomatosis in Britain. Veterinary Record 66, 434–435.Google Scholar
Mead-Briggs, A. R. & Vaughan, J. A. (1975). The differential transmissibility of myxoma virus strains of differing virulence grades by the rabbit flea Spilopsyllus cuniculi (Dale). Journal of Hygiene 75, 237–247.Google Scholar
Muirhead-Thomson, R. C. (1956 a). The part played by woodland mosquitoes of the genus Aedes in the transmission of myxomatosis in England. Journal of Hygiene 54, 461–471.Google Scholar
Muirhead-Thomson, R. C. (1956 b). Field studies on the role of Anopheles atroparvus in the transmission of myxomatosis in England. Journal of Hygiene 54, 472–477.Google ScholarPubMed
Myers, K. (1954). Studies in the epidemiology of infectious myxomatosis of rabbits. II. Field experiments, August–November 1950 and the first epizootic of myxomatosis in the riverine plain of south-eastern Australia. Journal of Hygiene 52, 47–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pedgley, D. E. (1980). Weather and airborne organisms. Technical Note 173. World Meteorological Organisation, Geneva.Google Scholar
Pedgley, D. E. (1983). Windborne spread of insect-transmitted diseases of animals and man. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 302, 463–470.Google Scholar
Ritchie, J. N., Hudson, J. R. & Thompson, H. V. (1954). Myxomatosis. Veterinary Record 66, 796–804.Google Scholar
Ross, J. (1982). Myxomatosis: a natural evolution of the disease. Symposium of the Zoological Society of London 50, 77–95.Google Scholar
Sellers, R. F. (1983). Seasonal variations in the spread of arthropod-borne disease agents of man and animals: implications for control Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 302, 485–495.Google Scholar
Service, M. W. (1971). A reappraisal of the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of myxomatosis in Britain. Journal of Hygiene 69, 105–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, H. V. (1954). The rabbit disease: myxomatosis. Annals of Applied Biology 41, 358–366.Google Scholar