Building resilience to emerging disease-transmitting species and improving surveillance in Spain

Key Learnings

About the Region

Figure 1: Location of Navarre region within Spain and Europe.

Climate Threats

Climate change regional strategy

In response to the rising risk of climate change and its impacts, the Navarre region has developed a Climate Change Roadmap. This strategy includes measures such as energy saving, the promotion of renewable energy and sustainable mobility, adaptation to natural, urban, and rural environments, as well as the fight against energy poverty, among others. The strategy addresses various governmental departments of Navarre as well as its public agencies and companies.

The Climate Change Roadmap for Navarre (CCRN) also includes a series of “crosscutting actions”, which include capacity building, networking, communication, awareness-raising and dissemination to foster coherence and complement the set of measures. Regional authorities and the LIFE-IP NAdapta-CC project jointly developed these measures, establishing cooperation networks, platforms, and forums, and strengthening communication, dissemination, knowledge transfer, replication, training, and strategic capacity building.

Within the roadmap, two working lines focus on reducing the risk of disease transmission through insects on livestock and humans.

• Agriculture and Livestock – Monitoring climate-induced insect transmissions of emerging animal diseases: Climate Change adaptation in animal health includes monitoring insect transmitters of emerging diseases, such as ticks or mosquitoes (Culex, Anopheles, Aedes, Tabanidae and Stomoxys calcitrans). Both the Government of Navarre and the public company INTIA (The Institute of agri-food technologies and Infrastructure of Navarre) organise training  and have developed a Monitoring and Warning Station with a new Integrated Pest Management model.
• Human Health – Developing a surveillance system to detect invasive species transmitting human diseases: Navarre fosters the monitoring of invasive species-transmitted diseases, such as malaria, Zika or dengue, which is transmitted by the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). This also includes the improvement of warning and preventive protocols for early response actions to control diseases in case of detection.

Results, benefits and future outlooks

With respect to animal health, a regional Warning Station for disease-infested livestock prevents large-scale infections as it detects infected individuals early on. The public company INTIA manages this warning station. Moreover, the Institute of Public and Occupational Health of Navarre implements the tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus plan, which also helps detect the presence of other possible mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, such as Aedes japonicus.

Currently, the Institute of Public and Occupational Health of Navarre aims to formalise the Technical Working Group within its organisation and to provide it with tools, skills, and resources. An official commission or committee may be created on a short-term basis. This will allow the continuation of the work promoted mainly by the LIFE-IP NAdapta-CC project and other complementary actions.

The Technical Working Group discusses and analyses new topics regarding transmitter surveillance, such as Japanese mosquito (Aedes japonicus), Culex (West Nile Fever carriers) and rodents (Leptospirosis carriers). Due to climatic changes in Navarre’s north, which are leading to more tropical conditions regarding temperature and humidity levels, the presence of mice, rats, and coypu (small rodents in general) is increasing. This, in turn, increases the risk of bacterial infection transmission. The Technical Working Group is making it possible to bring together information, methodologies and prioritisation of objectives according to risk levels such as emergency thresholds, resource allocation, timelines, and communication through local media.

The Technical Working Group strengthens coordination between the agents involved to monitor and improve public health protocols that capture the presence of invasive transmitting species of emerging diseases, such as mosquitoes or ticks. This coordination depends directly on sharing knowledge and data. Since the creation of the Technical Working Group, this health governance system actively contributes to providing a “One Health” vision to different regional agents, such as project partners, public administrations and other professional bodies. European institutions recognise that human, animal and environmental health are intrinsically connected and interdependent.

Figure 2: Last Technical Working Group meeting in October 2024, Pamplona. Image Credit: LIFE-IP NAdapta-CC.

Since emerging diseases due to climate change are a threat to all people, Navarre considers it necessary to raise awareness and foster public participation. A citizen science activity aimed at students focuses on the tiger mosquito prevention and spread control. This activity is part of the Observatory of Citizen Science’s catalogue in Spain, which compiles all cases of citizen science in the country. This activity aims to raise students' awareness of the problems associated with climate change and the spread of emerging diseases and contribute to controlling the presence of the tiger mosquito. To this end, theoretical sessions have been conducted, followed by practical fieldwork in which the students themselves placed mosquito traps, thereby expanding the official monitoring network for Aedes albopictus. This expansion led to the first detection of adult specimens in a region of Navarre known as Sakana, which had previously been considered free of this mosquito.

Figure 3: Infographic of the historic view of the CTG on Vectors, with its most relevant milestones. Image Credit: LIFE-IP NAdapta-CC.

This integrated work allows better surveillance and monitoring systems in the future, and fosters preventive actions. It also contributes to a better public service for citizens, and to optimising the public expenses by providing more information, more data, and expanding the monitoring network.

Figure 4: Photograph of one of the citizen science sessions held at a high school. Image Credit: LIFE-IP NAdapta-CC

Summary

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