Epi studies

Epidemiological studies investigating disease dynamics and measures of disease frequency

This is not an agent/disease listed by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). Geographical distribution can therefore not be mapped directly from any available reports.

The panel to the right shows the distribution of epidemiological studies collected in the literature review. Click on the map to see more information about the studies. The following study context categories are considered:

Case reports
Passive surveillance (reports of specific surveillance activities following reported cases)
Evidence of disease freedom (investigations to confirm disease absence)
Observational study (case-control or cohort studies)
Active surveillance (active testing of animals and search for cases)
Survey (designed sampling and testing of animals)

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Disease

Animal Health Impact

A summary of the disease in animal hosts is given in the WOAH Technical disease card.

The panel to the right summarizes evidence collected from published studies describing natural infections with this agent (as opposed to experimental infections, summarized in dedicated section).

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering studies investigating natural infections with this agent, and published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Experimental Inf.

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experimental infection studies describing the health effects of this pathogen in host animal species. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

Host species
Start of clinical signs (incubation period)
Duration of clinical signs
All diverse types of clinical signs reported in the different host species
Case fatality
Meta-analysis of the reported duration of observable clinical signs, accounting for censoring in the experimental infection study groups

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all experimental infections published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

Public Health

There are no evidences about AKAV infection in humans ({Ñref032:CFSPH, 2016).

Agent

Virus taxonomy

Family: Bunyaviridae

Genus: Orthobunyavirus

Species: Akabane virus

Virus survival outside living hosts

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experiments on pathogen survival. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

Survival plots indicating the maximum number of days the agent was detected in different matrices under different conditions (temperature)
Half-life studies which documented agent viability decay over time under different temperatures
Meta-analysis of the reported agent survival period for matrices in which a sufficient number of studies were found

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering pathogen survival experiments published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

Transmission

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experimental infection studies describing host infectiousness. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

Evidence of Host-host transmission
Evidence of transplacentary transmission
Meta-analysis of the reported duration of the infectious period, accounting for censoring in the experimental infection study groups
Data for all animal matrices in which agent presence was demonstrated.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all experimental infections published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

Diagnosis

There are no WOAH- recommended standard tests for Akabane.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, covering diagnostic tests approved for use in the European Union (EU).

Data were collected from all evaluations of performance of those tests which provided sensitivity or specificity (or enough data to estimate those needed to be provided). You can browse through the data collected scrolling the panel to the right.

We have chosen not to aggregate and summarize the results because the study conditions can vary greatly. Instead, we present the results for all the articles retrieved from the literature individually, grouped by type of test, diagnostic target and, when relevant, animal species.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

Vectors

Know vectors; Mosquitoes and biting midges
Vector taxonomy: MIDGES

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Family: Ceratopogonidae
Genus: Culicoides
Common name: biting midge, gnat, no-see-um, punky.

The map on the right shows the reported presence of specific vector species in primary sources.

Vector taxonomy: MOSQUITOES

Visit the VectorNet resources directly for further information on disease vectors, including expert opinion

Kingdom: Animalia

*To consider an arthropod species as a vector for viruses, the following four criteria should be satisfied (World Health Organization, 1967): (1) the species should be repeatedly associated with the disease in the field (season and places); (2) the virus should be recovered from field-collected adult females that do not have a fresh blood meal in the abdomen; (3) the species should be able to become infected after oral infection; and (4) the species should be able to transmit the infection biologically. However, based on the literature finding, all these criteria could be satisfied for only very few arthropod species, which could then be called a vector in this strict sense. Furthermore, other vector species could be present which were never tested for this pathogen.

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Family: Culicidae
Genera: Culex sp., Aedes sp.
Species: Culex tritaeniorhynchus (mosquito), Aedes vexans (Inland floodwater mosquito)

Vector control

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published studies of the efficacy of various substances available for MOSQUITO control. Scroll down through the content. Control of MIDGES can be found in story maps for diseases where those are the only vectors. Visit for example the Bluetongue story map, section "vector control" for studies targetting midges; and the Leishmaniosis story map for vector control studies targeting sandflies.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

The efficacy of various substances on vector mortality, when applied to animal hosts by different routes (modes of treatment)
The efficacy of various substances in experiments where vectors were directly exposed

Studies that presented substance effects through outcomes other than vector mortality (for instance infestation prevention)

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering vector control studies (for selected vectors: midges, mosqtuitoes, sandflies and ticks) published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in January 2018. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Vaccination

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews (SLR) covering all vaccine efficacy studies published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, when evaluating vaccines approved for use in the European Union.

No vaccines had been authorised for use in the EU by the European Medicine Agency at the time of the latest SLR. The next update is planned for 2024.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here, for pathogens which have available vaccines. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

Picture information: Bovine neonate. This live calf cannot stand due to severe arthrogryposis, primarily affecting the hindlimbs. Credit: Dr. P. Mansell, University of Melbourne. Image bank from the Center for Food Security and Public Health (CFSPH), Iowa State University. Photo ID: AKA_001

Treatments

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published treatment efficacy studies. When available, evidence was collected from two main types of studies:

those in which the animals were subjected to a specific Pharmaceutical treatment, and the efficacy of the treatment in preventing infections in the treated group is reported in comparison to a control group;
and those in which a vector control substance (insecticide)t was used, and its effect in preventing infections in hosts is reported.

For both types of studies the panel to the right presents reported results regarding:

Efficacy: efficacy is measured as 1-(percentage infection in the treated group/percentage infection in the control group)
Titer of neutralizing antibodies
Percentage of positive animals (after exposire to the agent)
Mortality

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering treatment efficacy studies published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, when substances used for treatment are approved for use in the European Union.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

Legislation

No specific measures are laid down in the EU legislation for AKAV outbreak control. The EU does not apply any trade restrictions in relation to the AKAV virus or any other Orthobunyavirus on live animals, their meat, milk or animal by-products (SANCO/7012/2012). The disease is not officially notifiable.

Consult the available risk assessments in full through the links below:

Scientific Opinion on Vector-borne diseases

Risk Assessments

EFSA regularly carries out risk assessments to support risk managers with their decision making on the prevention and control of diseases. Risk assessments of relevance for this disease are listed in the right panel.

Acknowledgments

The CoVetLab consortium has been responsible for the systematic literature reviews since 2015, and has delivered story maps to EFSA since 2021. Partners are: Swedish National Veterinary Institute (SVA, Sweden); Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR, The Netherlands); Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA; UK) and the University of Surrey (UK).

CFSPH (The Center for Food Security and Public Health), 2016. Akabane disease. CFSPH, Iowa, USA.

Dórea FC, Swanenburg M, van Roermund H, Horigan V, de Vos C, Gale P, Lilja T, Comin A, Bahuon C, Zientara S, Young B, Vial F, Kosmider R and Lindberg A, 2017. Data collection for risk assessments on animal health. EFSA supporting publication,14(1):EN-1171, 209 pp. doi: 10.2903/sp.efsa.2017.EN-1171.

Mintrisk

Systematic Literature Review Protocol, COVETLAB consortium. Review Protocol 2021.

WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) Technical Disease Card: African swine fever. 2021.

WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health), 2019. African Swine fever. Chapter 3.08.01. WOAH Terrestrial Manual, Paris, France

WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health), 2021. African Swine fever. Chapter 15.1. WOAH Terrestrial Animal Health Code, Paris, France

WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health). Terrestrial Animal Health Code 2021. WOAH, Paris, France

WOAH-WAHIS (WOAH World Animal Health Information System)

References

The list of references displayed in this storymap is available on the right panel.

You can also download the complete list of references for each of the seven specific knowledge domains for which EFSA carries out systematic literature reviews regularly (living reviews):

Experimental Infections (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)
Pathogen Survival (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)
Diagnostic Tests (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)
Vaccines (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)
Treatments (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)
Vector Control (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)
Geographical distribution (complete list of references, complete dataset, Read me file)