TY - JOUR
T1 - Theoretical perspectives on the infectiousness of Ebola virus disease Epidemiology
AU - Nishiura, Hiroshi
AU - Chowell, Gerardo
N1 - Funding Information:
HN received funding support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) CREST program, RISTEX program for Science of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, and St Luke’s Life Science Institute Research Grant for Clinical Epidemiology Research 2014. GC acknowledges financial support from the NSF grant 1414374 as part of the joint NSF-NIH-USDA Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program, UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant BB/M008894/1, and the Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies, The Fogarty International Center, US National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Nishiura and Chowell; licensee BioMed Central.
PY - 2015/1/6
Y1 - 2015/1/6
N2 - Background: Ebola virus disease (EVD) has generated a large epidemic in West Africa since December 2013. This mini-review is aimed to clarify and illustrate different theoretical concepts of infectiousness in order to compare the infectiousness across different communicable diseases including EVD. Methods: We employed a transmission model that rests on the renewal process in order to clarify theoretical concepts on infectiousness, namely the basic reproduction number, R 0, which measures the infectiousness per generation of cases, the force of infection (i.e. the hazard rate of infection), the intrinsic growth rate (i.e. infectiousness per unit time) and the per-contact probability of infection (i.e. infectiousness per effective contact). Results: Whereas R 0 of EVD is similar to that of influenza, the growth rate (i.e. the measure of infectiousness per unit time) for EVD was shown to be comparatively lower than that for influenza. Moreover, EVD and influenza differ in mode of transmission whereby the probability of transmission per contact is lower for EVD compared to that of influenza. Conclusions: The slow spread of EVD associated with the need for physical contact with body fluids supports social distancing measures including contact tracing and case isolation. Descriptions and interpretations of different variables quantifying infectiousness need to be used clearly and objectively in the scientific community and for risk communication.
AB - Background: Ebola virus disease (EVD) has generated a large epidemic in West Africa since December 2013. This mini-review is aimed to clarify and illustrate different theoretical concepts of infectiousness in order to compare the infectiousness across different communicable diseases including EVD. Methods: We employed a transmission model that rests on the renewal process in order to clarify theoretical concepts on infectiousness, namely the basic reproduction number, R 0, which measures the infectiousness per generation of cases, the force of infection (i.e. the hazard rate of infection), the intrinsic growth rate (i.e. infectiousness per unit time) and the per-contact probability of infection (i.e. infectiousness per effective contact). Results: Whereas R 0 of EVD is similar to that of influenza, the growth rate (i.e. the measure of infectiousness per unit time) for EVD was shown to be comparatively lower than that for influenza. Moreover, EVD and influenza differ in mode of transmission whereby the probability of transmission per contact is lower for EVD compared to that of influenza. Conclusions: The slow spread of EVD associated with the need for physical contact with body fluids supports social distancing measures including contact tracing and case isolation. Descriptions and interpretations of different variables quantifying infectiousness need to be used clearly and objectively in the scientific community and for risk communication.
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U2 - 10.1186/1742-4682-12-1
DO - 10.1186/1742-4682-12-1
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:84929170367
SN - 1742-4682
VL - 12
JO - Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling
JF - Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling
IS - 1
M1 - 1
ER -