Detecting emerging transmissibility of avian influenza virus in human households
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Accumulating infections of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in humans underlines the need to track the ability of these viruses to spread among humans. A human-transmissible avian influenza virus is expected to cause clusters of infections in humans living in close contact. Therefore, epidemiological analysis of infection clusters in human households is of key importance. Infection clusters may arise from transmission events from (i) the animal reservoir, (ii) humans who were infected by animals (primary human-to-human transmission), or (iii) humans who were infected by humans (secondary human-to-human transmission). Here we propose a method of analysing household infection data to detect changes in the transmissibility of avian influenza viruses in humans at an early stage. The method is applied to an outbreak of H7N7 avian influenza virus in The Netherlands that was the cause of more than 30 human-to-human transmission events. The analyses indicate that secondary human-to-human transmission is plausible for the Dutch household infection data. Based on the estimates of the within-household transmission parameters, we evaluate the effectiveness of antiviral prophylaxis, and conclude that it is unlikely that all household infections can be prevented with current antiviral drugs. We discuss the applicability of our method for the detection of emerging human-to-human transmission of avian influenza viruses in particular, and for the analysis of within-household infection data in general.
Date Issued
2007-07-27
Date Acceptance
2007-06-06
Citation
PLOS Computational Biology, 2007, 3 (7), pp.1394-1402
ISSN
1553-734X
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Start Page
1394
End Page
1402
Journal / Book Title
PLOS Computational Biology
Volume
3
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2007 van Boven et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000249106000020&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Biochemical Research Methods
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS
MATHEMATICAL & COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
A VIRUS
EPIDEMIC MODELS
HOST-RANGE
H5N1
ASIA
NETHERLANDS
INFECTIONS
EMERGENCE
EVOLUTION
PATHOGENS
Computer Simulation
Disease Outbreaks
Disease Transmission, Infectious
Humans
Incidence
Influenza A Virus, H5N1 Subtype
Influenza A Virus, H7N7 Subtype
Influenza, Human
Models, Biological
Netherlands
Population Surveillance
Risk Assessment
Risk Factors
Bioinformatics
06 Biological Sciences
08 Information And Computing Sciences
01 Mathematical Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e145