Measuring real-time disease transmissibility with temperature-dependent generation intervals.

ABSTRACT: Accurate real-time estimation of the effective reproduction number (Rt) is critical for infectious disease surveillance and response. In vector-borne diseases like dengue, temperature strongly influences disease transmission by affecting generation times. However, most existing Rt estimation methods assume a fixed generation interval, leading to biased estimates and unreliable assessments of transmission risk in settings with fluctuating temperatures. In this study, we proposed and evaluated a novel framework to estimate a temperature-dependent reproduction number (td-Rt) that dynamically updates the generation interval distribution based on observed temperature data. We obtained real-time estimates of td-Rt through an adapted Bayesian recursive filtering process. Using real and simulated

SUBMITTER: Choo ELW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12854435 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature