The impact of aggregating serogroups in dynamic models of Neisseria meningitidis transmission.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) is a pathogen of multiple serogroups that is highly prevalent in many populations. Serogroups associated with invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) in Canada, for example, include A, B, C, W-135, X and Y. IMD is a rare but serious outcome of Nm infection, and can be prevented with vaccines that target certain serogroups. This has stimulated the development of dynamic models to evaluate vaccine impact. However, these models typically aggregate the various Nm serogroups into a small number of combined groups, instead of modelling each serogroup individually. The impact of aggregation on dynamic Nm model predictions is poorly understood. Our objective was to explore the impact of aggregation on dynamic model predictions.

Methods

We develope

SUBMITTER: Poore KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4520071 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature