Shaw Callum, McLure Angus, Glass Kathryn
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
R Soc Open Sci. 2024 May 15;11(5):231319. doi: 10.1098/rsos.231319. eCollection 2024 May.
African swine fever (ASF) is a highly virulent viral disease that affects domestic pigs and wild boar. Current ASF transmission in Europe is in part driven by wild boar populations, which act as a disease reservoir. Wild boar are abundant throughout Europe and are highly social animals with complex social organization. Despite the known importance of wild boar in ASF spread and persistence, knowledge gaps remain surrounding wild boar transmission. We developed a wild boar modelling framework to investigate the influence of contact-density functions and wild boar social structure on disease dynamics. The framework included an ordinary differential equation model, a homogeneous stochastic model and various network-based stochastic models that explicitly included wild boar social grouping. We found that power-law functions (transmission density) and frequency-based contact-density functions were best able to reproduce recent Baltic outbreaks; however, power-law function models predicted considerable carcass transmission, while frequency-based models had negligible carcass transmission. Furthermore, increased model heterogeneity caused a decrease in the relative importance of carcass-based transmission. The transmission pathways predicted by each model type affected the efficacy of idealized interventions, which highlights the importance of evaluating model type and structure when modelling systems with significant uncertainties.
非洲猪瘟（ASF）是一种高致病性病毒性疾病，可感染家猪和野猪。目前欧洲的非洲猪瘟传播部分是由野猪种群推动的，野猪充当了疾病宿主。野猪在欧洲各地数量众多，是具有复杂社会组织的高度群居动物。尽管已知野猪在非洲猪瘟传播和持续存在方面的重要性，但围绕野猪传播仍存在知识空白。我们开发了一个野猪建模框架，以研究接触密度函数和野猪社会结构对疾病动态的影响。该框架包括一个常微分方程模型、一个齐次随机模型以及各种明确包含野猪社会分组的基于网络的随机模型。我们发现，幂律函数（传播密度）和基于频率的接触密度函数最能重现近期波罗的海地区的疫情爆发；然而，幂律函数模型预测有相当数量的尸体传播，而基于频率的模型的尸体传播可忽略不计。此外，模型异质性的增加导致基于尸体的传播的相对重要性降低。每种模型类型预测的传播途径影响了理想化干预措施的效果，这凸显了在对具有重大不确定性的系统进行建模时评估模型类型和结构的重要性。
