scholarly journals Internal versus external determinants of Schistosoma japonicum transmission in irrigated agricultural villages

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (67) ◽  
pp. 272-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Spear

Currently schistosomiasis transmission has been suppressed to low levels in many historically endemic areas of China by widespread use of praziquantel in human and bovine populations and application of niclosamide for snail control. However, re-emergent transmission has signalled the need for sustainable interventions beyond these repeated chemical interventions. To take advantage of ongoing investment in rural infrastructure, an index of schistosomiasis transmission potential is needed to identify villages where environmental modifications would be particularly effective. Based on a retrospective analysis of data from 10 villages in Sichuan Province, an index linked to the basic reproductive number is shown to have promise in meeting this need. However, a lack of methods for estimating the spatial components of the proposed metric and for estimating the import of cercariae and miracidia from neighbouring villages leads to significant uncertainty in its estimation. These findings suggest a priority effort to develop methods for measuring the free-swimming forms of the parasite in surface waters. This need is underscored by the high cost and limited sensitivity of current methods for diagnosing human infection and mounting evidence of the inadequacy of snail surveys to identify environments supporting low levels of transmission.

2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (3) ◽  
pp. 554-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. F. HINCKLEY ◽  
B. J. BIGGERSTAFF ◽  
K. S. GRIFFITH ◽  
P. S. MEAD

SUMMARYPlague is thought to have killed millions during three catastrophic pandemics. Primary pneumonic plague, the most severe form of the disease, is transmissible from person-to-person and has the potential for propagating epidemics. Efforts to quantify its transmission potential have relied on published data from large outbreaks, an approach that artificially inflates the basic reproductive number (R0) and skews the distribution of individual infectiousness. Using data for all primary pneumonic plague cases reported in the USA from 1900 to 2009, we determined that the majority of cases will fail to transmit, even in the absence of antimicrobial treatment or prophylaxis. Nevertheless, potential for sustained outbreaks still exists due to superspreading events. These findings challenge current concepts regarding primary pneumonic plague transmission.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. Armstrong ◽  
Hanna Ehrlich ◽  
Angela Bransfield ◽  
Joshua L. Warren ◽  
Virginia E. Pitzer ◽  
...  

SUMMARY PARAGRAPHThe recent Zika virus (ZIKV) and chikungunya virus (CHIKV) epidemics highlight the explosive nature of arthropod-borne (arbo) viruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes1,2. Vector competence and the extrinsic incubation period (EIP) are two key entomological parameters used to assess the public health risk posed by arboviruses3. These are typically measured empirically by offering mosquitoes an infectious bloodmeal and temporally sampling mosquitoes to determine infection and transmission status. This approach has been used for the better part of a century; however, it does not accurately capture the biology and behavior of many mosquito vectors which refeed frequently (every 2-3 days)4. Here we demonstrate that administration of a second non-infectious bloodmeal significantly shortens the EIP of ZIKV-infected Ae. aegypti by enhancing virus escape from the mosquito midgut. Similarly, a second bloodmeal increased the competence of this species for dengue virus and CHIKV. This effect was also observed for ZIKV in Aedes albopictus, suggesting that this species might be a more important vector than once thought and that this phenomenon may be common among other virus-vector pairings. Modeling of these findings reveals that a shortened EIP would result in a significant increase in the basic reproductive number, R0. This increase helps explain how Ae.aegypti can sustain an explosive epidemic like ZIKV despite its relatively poor vector competence in single-feed laboratory trials. Together, these data demonstrate a direct and unrecognized link between mosquito feeding behavior, EIP, and vector competence.


Author(s):  
Steven Sanche ◽  
Yen Ting Lin ◽  
Chonggang Xu ◽  
Ethan Romero-Severson ◽  
Nick Hengartner ◽  
...  

AbstractThe novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a recently emerged human pathogen that has spread widely since January 2020. Initially, the basic reproductive number, R0, was estimated to be 2.2 to 2.7. Here we provide a new estimate of this quantity. We collected extensive individual case reports and estimated key epidemiology parameters, including the incubation period. Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus.One-sentence summaryBy collecting and analyzing spatiotemporal data, we estimated the transmission potential for 2019-nCoV.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ta-Chou Ng ◽  
Tzai-Hung Wen

AbstractThe basic reproductive number (R0) is a fundamental measure used to quantify the transmission potential of an epidemic in public health practice. However, R0 cannot reflect the time-varying nature of an epidemic. A time-varying effective reproductive number Rt can provide more information because it tracks the subsequent evolution of transmission. However, since it neglects individual-level geographical variations in exposure risk, Rt may smooth out interpersonal heterogeneous transmission potential, obscure high-risk spreaders, and hence hamper the effectiveness of control measures in spatial dimension. Therefore, this study proposes a new method for quantifying spatially adjusted (time-varying) reproductive numbers that reflects spatial heterogeneity in transmission potential among individuals. This new method estimates individual-level effective reproductive numbers (Rj) and a summarized indicator for population-level time-varying reproductive number (Rt). Data from the five most severe dengue outbreaks in southern Taiwan from 1998–2015 were used to demonstrate the ability of the method to highlight early spreaders contributing to the geographic expansion of dengue transmission. Our results show spatial heterogeneity in the transmission potential of dengue among individuals and identify the spreaders with the highest Rj during the epidemic period. The results also reveal that super-spreaders are usually early spreaders that locate at the edges of the epidemic foci, which means that these cases could be the drivers of the expansion of the outbreak. Therefore, our proposed method depicts a more detailed spatial-temporal dengue transmission process and identifies the significant role of the edges of the epidemic foci, which could be weak spots in disease control and prevention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Kong ◽  
Tao Li ◽  
Yuanmei Wang ◽  
Xinming Cheng ◽  
He Wang ◽  
...  

AbstractNowadays, online gambling has a great negative impact on the society. In order to study the effect of people’s psychological factors, anti-gambling policy, and social network topology on online gambling dynamics, a new SHGD (susceptible–hesitator–gambler–disclaimer) online gambling spreading model is proposed on scale-free networks. The spreading dynamics of online gambling is studied. The basic reproductive number $R_{0}$ R 0 is got and analyzed. The basic reproductive number $R_{0}$ R 0 is related to anti-gambling policy and the network topology. Then, gambling-free equilibrium $E_{0}$ E 0 and gambling-prevailing equilibrium $E_{ +} $ E + are obtained. The global stability of $E_{0}$ E 0 is analyzed. The global attractivity of $E_{ +} $ E + and the persistence of online gambling phenomenon are studied. Finally, the theoretical results are verified by some simulations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Khataee ◽  
Istvan Scheuring ◽  
Andras Czirok ◽  
Zoltan Neufeld

AbstractA better understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic responds to social distancing efforts is required for the control of future outbreaks and to calibrate partial lock-downs. We present quantitative relationships between key parameters characterizing the COVID-19 epidemiology and social distancing efforts of nine selected European countries. Epidemiological parameters were extracted from the number of daily deaths data, while mitigation efforts are estimated from mobile phone tracking data. The decrease of the basic reproductive number ($$R_0$$ R 0 ) as well as the duration of the initial exponential expansion phase of the epidemic strongly correlates with the magnitude of mobility reduction. Utilizing these relationships we decipher the relative impact of the timing and the extent of social distancing on the total death burden of the pandemic.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1164
Author(s):  
Weiwei Ling ◽  
Pinxia Wu ◽  
Xiumei Li ◽  
Liangjin Xie

By using differential equations with discontinuous right-hand sides, a dynamic model for vector-borne infectious disease under the discontinuous removal of infected trees was established after understanding the transmission mechanism of Huanglongbing (HLB) disease in citrus trees. Through calculation, the basic reproductive number of the model can be attained and the properties of the model are discussed. On this basis, the existence and global stability of the calculated equilibria are verified. Moreover, it was found that different I0 in the control strategy cannot change the dynamic properties of HLB disease. However, the lower the value of I0, the fewer HLB-infected citrus trees, which provides a theoretical basis for controlling HLB disease and reducing expenditure.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bingyi Yang ◽  
Angkana T. Huang ◽  
Bernardo Garcia-Carreras ◽  
William E. Hart ◽  
Andrea Staid ◽  
...  

AbstractNon-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) remain the only widely available tool for controlling the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We estimated weekly values of the effective basic reproductive number (Reff) using a mechanistic metapopulation model and associated these with county-level characteristics and NPIs in the United States (US). Interventions that included school and leisure activities closure and nursing home visiting bans were all associated with a median Reff below 1 when combined with either stay at home orders (median Reff 0.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.58–1.39) or face masks (median Reff 0.97, 95% CI 0.58–1.39). While direct causal effects of interventions remain unclear, our results suggest that relaxation of some NPIs will need to be counterbalanced by continuation and/or implementation of others.


1999 ◽  
Vol 190 (6) ◽  
pp. 841-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan J. Little ◽  
Angela R. McLean ◽  
Celsa A. Spina ◽  
Douglas D. Richman ◽  
Diane V. Havlir

Viral dynamics were intensively investigated in eight patients with acute HIV infection to define the earliest rates of change in plasma HIV RNA before and after the start of antiretroviral therapy. We report the first estimates of the basic reproductive number (R0), the number of cells infected by the progeny of an infected cell during its lifetime when target cells are not depleted. The mean initial viral doubling time was 10 h, and the peak of viremia occurred 21 d after reported HIV exposure. The spontaneous rate of decline (α) was highly variable among individuals. The phase 1 viral decay rate (δI = 0.3/day) in subjects initiating potent antiretroviral therapy during acute HIV infection was similar to estimates from treated subjects with chronic HIV infection. The doubling time in two subjects who discontinued antiretroviral therapy was almost five times slower than during acute infection. The mean basic reproductive number (R0) of 19.3 during the logarithmic growth phase of primary HIV infection suggested that a vaccine or postexposure prophylaxis of at least 95% efficacy would be needed to extinguish productive viral infection in the absence of drug resistance or viral latency. These measurements provide a basis for comparison of vaccine and other strategies and support the validity of the simian immunodeficiency virus macaque model of acute HIV infection.


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