Epidemiologia · Published 2026-07-14 · DOI 10.3390/epidemiologia7040102
Antonios Papadakis, Eleftherios Koufakis, Sandra Gewehr, Spiros Mourelatos, Elias Ath Chaidoutis, George Pitsoulis, Apostolos Kamekis, Areti Lagiou
Background/Objectives: West Nile virus (WNV) is a persistent mosquito-borne threat in Greece. This study examined whether online information-seeking patterns reflected official WNV surveillance during 2024–2025, with Crete providing descriptive field-level One Health preparedness context. Methods: Official national surveillance data were compared with country-level Google Trends relative search volume and Greek-language Wikipedia pageviews, focusing on weekly locally acquired West Nile neuroinvasive disease/central nervous system (WNND/CNS) cases. The Crete component separately summarized regional One Health preparedness. Results: Greece reported 220 locally acquired WNV cases (157 WNND/CNS) in 2024 and 96 (76 WNND/CNS) in 2025. Wikipedia pageviews showed the strongest full-year associations with WNND/CNS activity when pageviews followed cases by one week (2024: Spearman rho = 0.802; 2025: rho = 0.763; both <i>p</i> < 0.001). Google Trends showed weaker associations at the same lag (2024: rho = 0.402, <i>p</i> = 0.003; 2025: rho = 0.452, <i>p</i> < 0.001). Transmission-period sensitivity analyses attenuated several associations: the 2025 Wikipedia associations and the Google Trends associations in both years were not statistically significant. The first-difference lag analysis identified no leading digital signal. Conclusions: Wikipedia showed more stable language-specific temporal concordance with national surveillance than Google Trends. However, the digital indicators reflected concurrent or lagging public attention and did not demonstrate predictive capacity. The Crete component separately illustrates how regional One Health preparedness complements national surveillance and risk communication.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
Read the article at the publisher →
Papadakis, A., Koufakis, E., Gewehr, S., et al. (2026). Infodemiology of West Nile Virus in Greece, 2024–2025, with Descriptive One Health Preparedness Evidence from Crete. Epidemiologia. https://doi.org/10.3390/epidemiologia7040102