Estimation of the force of infection and infectious period of skin sores in remote Australian communities using interval-censored data

Estimation of the force of infection and infectious period of skin sores in remote Australian communities using interval-censored data Journal Article

PLOS Computational Biology

• Author(s): Lydeamore, Michael J., Campbell, Patricia T., Price, David J., Wu, Yue, Marcato, Adrian J., Cuningham, Will, Carapetis, Jonathan R., Andrews, Ross M., McDonald, Malcolm I., McVernon, Jodie, Tong, Steven Y. C., McCaw, James M.
• Published: 2020
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Volume: 16

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Abstract: Author summary Impetigo (skin sores) is a condition that remains of public health interest. Late sequelae of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, combined with a high prevalence in remote Australian Aboriginal communities, Fiji, and other areas of socio-economic disadvantage, mean that impetigo is a substantial contributor to the burden of disease in these settings. Despite decades of study, key quantities of interest from a transmission dynamics perspective—including the force of infection, infectious period and reproductive ratio—have not yet been determined. Such measures are arguably crucial for making informed decisions on future surveillance activities and intervention strategies. Using a series of computational and statistical methods, we find that the infectious period in remote Australian Aboriginal communities is between 12 and 20 days, and that the force of infection varies by setting. Further, we show sampling every 10 days in future surveys is optimal for further refining these estimates.

• Urls: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007838, https://ris.cdu.edu.au/ws/files/35172390/journal.pcbi.1007838.pdf