Quantifying infectious disease epidemic risks: A practical approach for seasonal pathogens.

ABSTRACT: For many infectious diseases, the risk of outbreaks varies seasonally. If a pathogen is usually absent from a host population, a key public health policy question is whether the pathogen's arrival will initiate local transmission, which depends on the season in which arrival occurs. This question can be addressed by estimating the "probability of a major outbreak" (the probability that introduced cases will initiate sustained local transmission). A standard approach for inferring this probability exists for seasonal pathogens (involving calculating the Case Epidemic Risk; CER) based on the mathematical theory of branching processes. Under that theory, the probability of pathogen extinction is estimated, neglecting depletion of susceptible individuals. The CER is then one minus the extincti

SUBMITTER: Kaye AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11867399 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature