In search for the hotspots of Disease X: A biogeographic approach to mapping the predictive risk of WHO s Blueprint Priority Diseases

Soushieta Jagadesh; Marine Combe; Mathieu Nacher; Rodolphe Ellie Gozlan

In cases where the origin of the BPDs were unclear, we narrow down to the general region or district of origin. In other words, the localization of BPDs emergence correspond to patient zero of each outbreak. We did not include the diseases endemic to countries such as CCHF and Lassa fever. The calculation of predictive risk for endemic diseases and pandemics such as Zika may not contribute to the existing evidence. Laboratory outbreaks and outbreak in domestic and wildlife were also excluded. We georeferenced the sites of origin or the centroids of the region of occurrence to the nearest 0.0001°. Spatial buffers were constructed around the geographical coordinates depending upon the mobility range of the respective pathogens reservoirs and intermediate buffers (Appendix table 2 ). The construction of buffers also mitigates the relatively . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.