On the exact measure of disease spread in stochastic epidemic models

The basic reproduction number, R (0), is probably the most important quantity in epidemiology. It is used to measure the transmission potential during the initial phase of an epidemic. In this paper, we are specifically concerned with the quantification of the spread of a disease modeled by a Markov...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Artalejo Rodríguez, Jesús Manuel, López Herrero, María Jesús
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/33362
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/33362
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:519.2
Disease spread
Basic reproduction number
Stochastic epidemic
Vaccination coverage
Estadística aplicada
Descripción
Sumario:The basic reproduction number, R (0), is probably the most important quantity in epidemiology. It is used to measure the transmission potential during the initial phase of an epidemic. In this paper, we are specifically concerned with the quantification of the spread of a disease modeled by a Markov chain. Due to the occurrence of repeated contacts taking place between a typical infective individual and other individuals already infected before, R (0) overestimates the average number of secondary infections. We present two alternative measures, namely, the exact reproduction number, R (e0), and the population transmission number, R (p) , that overcome this difficulty and provide valuable insight. The applicability of R (e0) and R (p) to control of disease spread is also examined.