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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the establishement of West Nile Virus epidemic thread in Central Europe. Starting from virus-mosquito mutualism to interrogate how human health threats create opportunities—and foreclose possibilities—for advancing multispecies environmental justice beyond One Health frameworks.

Paper long abstract

This paper departs from the mutualism between West Nile Virus and mosquitoes to interrogate what happens when such viral-vector partnerships threaten human health. As climate change drives WNV's spread into Central Europe, I ask whether threats posed by one form of multispecies mutualism can create openings for more just interspecies futures.

Drawing on the first phase of research examining WNV epidemic risk establishment in Central Europe, I analyze scholarly and public health discourse (including veterinary) and media coverage to unpack how knowledge and policy production practices travels across borders of Central European states. Despite sharing similar geographical and ecological realities, these countries often approach WNV threat, preventive measures, and research strikingly differently. I examine on what information and arguments decisions about what to monitor, whom to protect, and what constitutes risk are based as the virus and its vectors deliver infection also to its reservoirs and hosts such as birds, humans and horses.

While some species become sentinels to be monitored, others vectors to be eliminated, and still others remain invisible to protective infrastructures, human health endangerment mobilizes unprecedented resources and attention—potentially opening space for deeper engagement with multispecies environmental justice.

I argue that centering harm as the analytical starting point reveals both the limits of One Health approaches—which instrumentalize non-human health to protect humans—and unexpected political possibilities. When viral-vector mutualism threatens humans, it forces recognition of ecological interdependencies that might otherwise remain ignored, creating potential leverage for advancing multispecies justice claims even as current biosecurity practices foreclose such possibilities.