Mapping Rift Valley Fever vectors and prevalence using rainfall variations

High activity of the Rift Valley Fever (RVF) virus is related to a tremendous increase of associated mosquito vectors, which follows periods of high rainfall. Indeed, rainfall creates an ecologically humid environment that insures the proliferation of breeding sites and the development of RVF vectors. Data collected by Fontenille et al. (1998) from 1991 to 1996 in the Barkedji area in the northern Senegal are employed to discuss and quantify the incidence of rainfall upon the abundances of RVF vectors. We have constructed a non-linear mapping of vector abundances versus rainfall variations, and developed a stochastic model and a corresponding algorithm allowing on output the simulation of RVF mosquito vectors as a function of rainfall trajectories in the course of time. This stochastic mapping of vector abundance is subsequently used to assess the prevalence of RVF in a population of susceptible hosts as a consequence of rainfall.