Spatiotemporal characteristics analysis and potential distribution prediction of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in China from 2007-2018

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly infectious disease that mainly infects small ruminants. To date, PPR has been confirmed in more than 70 countries. In China, PPR has occurred in more than 20 provinces and cities. In this study, based on geographic information system (GIS), spatial analysis was used to examine the occurrence of PPR in China from 2007 to 2018. The results showed that PPR first occurred in Tibet and gradually spread to other provinces. The outbreaks of PPR were concentrated in 2014, 2015 and 2018. Combining climate factors with the maximum entropy (MaxEnt), the results also suggested that the potential risk areas of PPR outbreaks in China were mainly Jiangsu, Yunnan and Anhui in Southeast China. Finally, a phylogenetic tree was used to analyse the evolutionary relationship between the peste des petits ruminants virus (PPRV) in China and the global ones, and it was found that the one in China had a close genetic relationship with the one in Mongolia, India and Bangladesh. Understanding and forecasting the distribution of PPR in China will help policymakers develop targeted monitoring plans. Likewise, analysing the global PPRV epidemic trends will play an important role in the elimination and prevention of PPR.