School of Mechatronic Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan, Shan'xi 030051, People's Republic of China.
J Theor Biol. 2012 May 7;300:39-47. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2012.01.006. Epub 2012 Jan 20.
Rabies is a major public health problem in some developing countries including China. One of the reasons is that there is a very large number of dogs, both domestic and stray, especially in Guangdong Province which has the third most rabies cases (after Guangxi and Hunan) among the 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in Mainland China, and at least 18.2% of the human rabies cases are caused by stray dogs. In this paper, based on the reported data and characteristics of the rabies infection in Guangdong Province, we propose a mathematical model for the dog-human transmission of rabies. We first determine the basic reproduction number R₀ and discuss the stability of the disease-free equilibrium and persistence of the disease. By carrying out sensitivity analysis of the basic reproduction number in terms of some parameters, we find that the domestic dog vaccination rate, the recruitment rate of domestic dogs, and the quantity of stray dogs play important roles in the transmission of rabies. This study suggests that rabies control and prevention strategies should include public education and awareness about rabies, increase of the domestic dog vaccination rate and reduction of the stray dog population.
狂犬病是包括中国在内的一些发展中国家的一个主要公共卫生问题。原因之一是狗的数量非常多，包括家养狗和流浪狗，尤其是在广东省，它是中国大陆 31 个省、自治区和直辖市中狂犬病病例数第三多的省份（仅次于广西和湖南），至少有 18.2%的人类狂犬病病例是由流浪狗引起的。在本文中，基于广东省报告的狂犬病感染数据和特征，我们提出了一个关于狂犬病在狗与人之间传播的数学模型。我们首先确定了基本再生数 R₀，并讨论了无病平衡点的稳定性和疾病的持续存在。通过对基本再生数的一些参数进行敏感性分析，我们发现家养狗的疫苗接种率、家养狗的招募率和流浪狗的数量在狂犬病的传播中起着重要作用。这项研究表明，狂犬病的控制和预防策略应该包括对狂犬病的公众教育和意识，提高家养狗的疫苗接种率和减少流浪狗的数量。
