Surveillance of vector-borne pathogens under imperfect detection: lessons from Chagas disease risk (mis)measurement.

ABSTRACT: Vector-borne pathogens threaten human health worldwide. Despite their critical role in disease prevention, routine surveillance systems often rely on low-complexity pathogen detection tests of uncertain accuracy. In Chagas disease surveillance, optical microscopy (OM) is routinely used for detecting Trypanosoma cruzi in its vectors. Here, we use replicate T. cruzi detection data and hierarchical site-occupancy models to assess the reliability of OM-based T. cruzi surveillance while explicitly accounting for false-negative and false-positive results. We investigated 841 triatomines with OM slides (1194 fresh, 1192 Giemsa-stained) plus conventional (cPCR, 841 assays) and quantitative PCR (qPCR, 1682 assays). Detections were considered unambiguous only when parasitologists unmistakably identi

SUBMITTER: Minuzzi-Souza TTC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5760667 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature