 |
| Research article summary (published 7 Feb 2007): |
The impact of contact structure on infectious disease control: influenza and antiviral agents.
Full Abstract
Planning adequate public health responses against emerging infectious diseases requires predictive tools to evaluate the impact of candidate intervention strategies. With current interest in pandemic influenza very high, modelling approaches have suggested antiviral treatment combined with targeted prophylaxis as an effective first-line intervention against an emerging influenza pandemic. To investigate how the effectiveness of such interventions depends on contact structure, we simulate the effects in networks with variable degree distributions. The infection attack rate can increase if the number of contacts per person is heterogeneous, implying the existence of high-degree individuals who are potential super-spreaders. The effectiveness of a socially targeted intervention suffers from heterogeneous contact patterns and depends on whether infection is predominantly transmitted to close or casual contacts. Our findings imply that the various contact networks' degree distributions as well as the allocation of contagiousness between close and casual contacts should be examined to identify appropriate strategies of disease control measures.
Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills
Author information
Author/s: Duerr, H-P (HP); Schwehm, M (M); Leary, C C (CC); De Vlas, S J (SJ); Eichner, M (M);
Affiliation: Department of Medical Biometry, University of Tübingen, Germany. hans-peter.duerr(-atsign-)uni-tuebingen.de
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Journal: Epidemiology and infection (Epidemiol Infect), published in England. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2007-Oct; vol 135 (issue 7) : pp 1124-32
Dates: Created 2007/09/21; Completed 2007/12/13; Revised 2008/11/21;
PMID: 17288643, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):
Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.
This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.
MeSH headings (categories)
This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.
|
|
Related articles
This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.
See a large map of 100+ related articles.