Spatial distribution of Biomphalaria mollusks at São Francisco River Basin, Minas Gerais, Brazil, using geostatistical procedures

Geostatistics is used in this work to make inferences about the presence of the species of Biomphalaria ( B. glabrata, B. tenagophila and/or B. straminea), intermediate hosts of Schistosoma mansoni, at the São Francisco River Basin, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. One of these geostatistical procedures, known as indicator kriging, allows the classification of categorical data, in areas where the data are not available, using a punctual sample set. The result is a map of species and risk area definition. More than a single map of the categorical attribute, the procedure also permits the association of uncertainties of the stochastic model, which can be used to qualify the inferences. In order to validate the estimated data of the risk map, a fieldwork in five municipalities was carried out. The obtained results showed that indicator kriging is a rather robust tool since it presented a very good agreement with the field findings. The obtained risk map can be thought as an auxiliary tool to formulate proper public health strategies, and to guide other fieldwork, considering the places with higher occurrence probability of the most important snail species. Also, the risk map will enable better resource distribution and adequate policies for the mollusk control. This methodology will be applied to other river basins to generate a predictive map for Biomphalaria species distribution for the entire state of Minas Gerais.