Autor(es): Escobar Luis E, Qiao Huijie, Peterson A Townsend

Resumo: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is endemic to Africa - Asia, but the Asian genotype invaded the Americas in 2013. The fast increase of human infections in the American epidemic emphasized the urgency of developing detailed predictions of case numbers - the potential geographic spread of this disease. We developed a simple model incorporating cases generated locally - cases imported from other countries, - forecasted transmission hotspots at the level of countries - at finer scales, in terms of ecological features. By late January 2015, >1.2 M CHIKV cases were reported from the Americas, with country-level prevalences between nil - more than 20 %. In the early stages of the epidemic, exponential growth in case numbers was common; later, however, poor - uneven reporting became more common, in a phenomenon we term surveillance fatigue." Economic activity of countries was not associated with prevalence, but diverse social factors may be linked to surveillance effort - reporting. Our model predictions were initially quite inaccurate, but improved markedly as more data accumulated within the Americas. The data-driven methodology explored in this study provides an opportunity to generate descriptive - predictive information on spread of emerging diseases in the short-term under simple models based on open-access tools - data that can inform early-warning systems - public health intelligence."

Palavras-Chave: Epidemic; Transmission; Disease model; Vector-borne; Passenger flow

Imprenta: Parasites & Vectors, v. 9, n. 1, p. 112, 2016

Identificador do Objeto Digital: 10.1186/s13071-016-1403-y

Descritores: Chikungunya virus - Viral infections ; Chikungunya Virus - Virus ; Chikungunya virus - Transmission ; Chikungunya virus - Epidemic ; Chikungunya virus - Public health

Data de Publicação: 2016