RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Comparative analysis of dengue and Zika outbreaks reveals differences by setting and virus
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 043265
DO 10.1101/043265
A1 Sebastian Funk
A1 Adam J. Kucharski
A1 Anton Camacho
A1 Rosalind M. Eggo
A1 Laith Yakob
A1 W. John Edmunds
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/03/11/043265.abstract
AB The pacific islands of Micronesia have experienced several outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases over the past decade. Since these outbreaks occurred in confined island populations, their analysis can improve our understanding of the transmission dynamics of the pathogens involved, and particularly so for yet understudied pathogens such as Zika virus. Here, we compare three outbreaks of dengue and Zika virus in two different island settings in Micronesia, the Yap Main Islands and Fais, using a mathematical model of transmission dynamics, making full use of commonalities in disease and setting between the outbreaks. We found that the estimated reproduction numbers for Zika and dengue are similar when considered in the same setting, but that, conversely, reproduction number for the same disease can vary considerably by setting. On the Yap Main Islands, we estimate a mean reproduction number of 4.3 (95% credible interval 3.1–6.1) for the dengue outbreak and 4.8 (2.9–8.1) for the Zika outbreak, whereas for the dengue outbreak on Fais our mean estimate is 10 (5.5–18). We further found that the ranges of most disease-specific parameters largely overlap between dengue and Zika, but that reporting rates of Zika cases are much smaller (3%, 1–7) than those of dengue (68%, 43–98). These results suggests that models for dengue transmission can be useful for estimating the predicted dynamics of Zika transmission, but care must be taken when extrapolating findings from one setting to another. Field studies on differences in vector density and biting exposure, as well as comparative modelling studies in other settings, could yield important further insights into the relationship between the transmission dynamics of Zika and dengue, and the specific setting in which they occur.