Predicting the Potential Distribution of Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome in Southwest China Using the Ecological Niche Modeling

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) poses a substantial public health burden in China. With its complex topography and rich biodiversity, Southwest China has historically been an endemic area for this natural focal disease. Currently, traditional environmental factors associated with transmission here are increasingly outweighed by anthropogenic forces, notably population agglomeration. Driven by these shifting dynamics, HFRS incidence and endemic ranges are expanding, yet systematic, regional-scale assessments remain scarce. Consequently, this study employs ecological niche modeling to map potential high-risk zones. Ultimately, we aim to explore the primary factors associated with HFRS prevalence amid the complex interplay of natural environments and human activities. Surveillance data of HFRS cases in Southwest China from 2014 to 2023 were obtained from the China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention (CISDCP). A Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model was constructed by integrating occurrence records with multisource environmental variables, including meteorological, socioeconomic, and land cover factors. Model performance was evaluated using the Area Under the Curve (AUC) of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), and the Jackknife test was employed to quantify the contribution of each variable. The MaxEnt model demonstrated robust predictive performance with a mean AUC of 0.902. Population density was identified as the predominant predictor (73.5