Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2020 Nov 3;14(11):e0008833. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008833. eCollection 2020 Nov.
One of the stated goals of the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases is the interruption of domiciliary transmissions of Chagas disease in the region of the Americas. We used a game-theoretic approach to assess the voluntary use of insecticide treated nets (ITNs) in the prevention of the spread of infection through vector bites. Our results show that individuals behave rationally and weigh the risks of insect bites against the cost of the ITNs. The optimal voluntary use of ITNs results in predicted incidence rates that closely track the real incidence rates in Latin America. This means that ITNs are effective and could be used to control the spread of the disease by relying on individual decisions rather than centralized policies. Our model shows that to completely eradicate the vector transmission through the voluntary individual use of ITNs, the cost of ITNs should be as low as possible.
伦敦被忽视热带病宣言的目标之一是中断中美洲地区的恰加斯病的家庭传播。我们使用博弈论方法来评估在预防通过媒介叮咬传播感染时，自愿使用驱虫蚊帐（ITN）的情况。我们的研究结果表明，个人的行为是理性的，他们会权衡被昆虫叮咬的风险与 ITN 的成本。ITN 的最佳自愿使用会导致预测的发病率与拉丁美洲的实际发病率密切相关。这意味着 ITN 是有效的，可以通过依靠个人决策而不是集中政策来控制疾病的传播。我们的模型表明，要通过自愿个人使用 ITN 完全消除媒介传播，ITN 的成本应该尽可能低。
