期刊
EPIDEMIOLOGY AND INFECTION
卷 140, 期 5, 页码 897-905出版社
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0950268811001385
关键词
Epidemics; infectious disease; mathematical modelling; meningitis; meningococcal disease
资金
- EPSRC [EP/501214/1]
- MenAfriCar consortium (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/Wellcome Trust)
Meningococcal meningitis is a major public health problem in a large area of sub-Saharan Africa known as the meningitis belt. Disease incidence increases every dry season, before dying out with the first rains of the year. Large epidemics, which can kill tens of thousands of people, occur frequently but unpredictably every 6-14 years. It has been suggested that these patterns may be attributable to complex interactions between the bacteria, human hosts and the environment. We used deterministic compartmental models to investigate how well simple model structures with seasonal forcing were able to qualitatively capture these patterns of disease. We showed that the complex and irregular timing of epidemics could be caused by the interaction of temporary immunity conferred by carriage of the bacteria together with seasonal changes in the transmissibility of infection. This suggests that population immunity is an important factor to include in models attempting to predict meningitis epidemics.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据