A pan-European assessment of multi-sector drivers of human hantavirus risk: climate, biodiversity, and socio-economic factors as key determinants

The landscape of emerging zoonoses is being rapidly reshaped by concurrent climate change, environmental transformation, and biodiversity loss. These pressures can alter host populations, pathogen dynamics, and human exposure. Yet, continental-scale evidence linking multi-sector drivers to human infection risk for specific rodent-borne diseases remains limited, particularly for hantavirus. To untangle these influences, we assembled the most high-resolution European hantavirus infection dataset to date (2011-2021), combining large datasets on climatic, environmental, biodiversity, and socio-economic aspects to identify the main drivers of human hantavirus transmission. Using machine learning models, we evaluated the best model for predicting the disease risk in Europe and identified the relative importance of each factor in shaping the risk of human hantavirus infection. Our results showed that maximum temperature in the fourth quarter, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and habitat richness emerged as the strongest drivers of human hantavirus disease risk, with non-linear effects varying across regions. Notably, habitat richness, as a proxy for biodiversity, exhibited a strong non-linear relationship with disease risk. Increasing habitat richness was first associated with higher disease risk at intermediate levels, whereas further increases tended to significantly reduce risk. Our results demonstrated that the occurrence of human hantavirus infection in Europe is shaped by multiple cross-sector drivers, highlighting the need to adopt an integrated One Health surveillance approach that incorporates both ecological and socio-economic contexts to improve the prediction of high-risk areas and periods of increased disease transmission. In addition, it is important to emphasize the role of biodiversity in hantavirus infection, particularly habitat richness, as changes in ecosystem diversity can alter the overall risk of disease occurrence. Based on these findings, we propose a mechanistic hypothesis for major regional hantavirus outbreaks, which provides a framework for future research and evidence-based policy development