Imperial College London
Alternate

Steven Riley

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2452s.riley

 
 
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Location

 

UG8Medical SchoolSt Mary's Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Riley:2016:10.1371/journal.pone.0148061,
author = {Riley, S and Wu, KM},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0148061},
journal = {PLOS One},
title = {Estimation of the basic reproductive number and mean serial interval of a novel pathogen in a small, well-observed discrete population},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148061},
volume = {11},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Background: Accurately assessing the transmissibility and serial interval of an novelhuman pathogen is public health priority so that the timing and required strength ofinterventions may be determined. Recent theoretical work has focused on making bestuse of data from the initial exponential phase of growth of incidence in largepopulations.Methods: We measured generational transmissibility by the basic reproductivenumber R0 and the serial interval by its mean Tg. First, we constructed a simulationalgorithm for case data arising from a small population of known size with R0 and Tgalso known. We then developed an inferential model for the likelihood of these case dataas a function of R0 and Tg. The model was designed to capture a) any signal of theserial interval distribution in the initial stochastic phase b) the growth rate of theexponential phase and c) the unique combination of R0 and Tg that generates a specificshape of peak incidence when the susceptible portion of a small population is depleted.Findings: Extensive repeat simulation and parameter estimation revealed no biasin univariate estimates of either R0 and Tg. We were also able to simultaneouslyestimate both R0 and Tg. However, accurate final estimates could be obtained onlymuch later in the outbreak. In particular, estimates of Tg were considerably lessaccurate in the bivariate case until the peak of incidence had passed.Conclusions: The basic reproductive number and mean serial interval can beestimated simultaneously in real time during an outbreak of an emerging pathogen.Repeated application of these methods to small scale outbreaks at the start of anepidemic would permit accurate estimates of key parameters.
AU  - Riley,S
AU  - Wu,KM
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0148061
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 1932-6203
TI  - Estimation of the basic reproductive number and mean serial interval of a novel pathogen in a small, well-observed discrete population
T2  - PLOS One
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148061
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/29177
VL  - 11
ER  -
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