Shakiba Nika, Edholm Christina J, Emerenini Blessing O, Murillo Anarina L, Peace Angela, Saucedo Omar, Wang Xueying, Allen Linda J S
School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Department of Mathematics, Scripps College, Claremont, CA, USA.
Infect Dis Model. 2021;6:560-583. doi: 10.1016/j.idm.2021.03.001. Epub 2021 Mar 18.
Superspreaders (individuals with a high propensity for disease spread) have played a pivotal role in recent emerging and re-emerging diseases. In disease outbreak studies, host heterogeneity based on demographic (e.g. age, sex, vaccination status) and environmental (e.g. climate, urban/rural residence, clinics) factors are critical for the spread of infectious diseases, such as Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Transmission rates can vary as demographic and environmental factors are altered naturally or due to modified behaviors in response to the implementation of public health strategies. In this work, we develop stochastic models to explore the effects of demographic and environmental variability on human-to-human disease transmission rates among superspreaders in the case of Ebola and MERS. We show that the addition of environmental variability results in reduced probability of outbreak occurrence, however the severity of outbreaks that do occur increases. These observations have implications for public health strategies that aim to control environmental variables.
超级传播者（具有高疾病传播倾向的个体）在近期出现的和再次出现的疾病中发挥了关键作用。在疾病爆发研究中，基于人口统计学（如年龄、性别、疫苗接种状况）和环境（如气候、城乡居住情况、诊所）因素的宿主异质性对于埃博拉和中东呼吸综合征（MERS）等传染病的传播至关重要。随着人口统计学和环境因素自然改变或因应对公共卫生策略实施而改变行为，传播率可能会有所不同。在这项工作中，我们开发了随机模型，以探讨在埃博拉和MERS病例中，人口统计学和环境变异性对超级传播者之间人际疾病传播率的影响。我们表明，环境变异性的增加会导致爆发发生的概率降低，然而确实发生的爆发的严重程度会增加。这些观察结果对旨在控制环境变量的公共卫生策略具有启示意义。
