The risk of incomplete personal protection coverage in vector-borne disease.

ABSTRACT: Personal protection (PP) techniques, such as insecticide-treated nets, repellents and medications, include some of the most important and commonest ways used today to protect individuals from vector-borne infectious diseases. In this study, we explore the possibility that a PP intervention with partial coverage may have the counterintuitive effect of increasing disease burden at the population level, by increasing the biting intensity on the unprotected portion of the population. To this end, we have developed a dynamic model which incorporates parameters that describe the potential effects of PP on vector searching and biting behaviour and calculated its basic reproductive rate, R0. R0 is a well-established threshold of disease risk; the higher R0 is above unity, the stronger the disease

SUBMITTER: Miller E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4780561 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature