Substantiating freedom from parasitic infection by combining transmission model predictions with disease surveys.

ABSTRACT: Stopping interventions is a critical decision for parasite elimination programmes. Quantifying the probability that elimination has occurred due to interventions can be facilitated by combining infection status information from parasitological surveys with extinction thresholds predicted by parasite transmission models. Here we demonstrate how the integrated use of these two pieces of information derived from infection monitoring data can be used to develop an analytic framework for guiding the making of defensible decisions to stop interventions. We present a computational tool to perform these probability calculations and demonstrate its practical utility for supporting intervention cessation decisions by applying the framework to infection data from programmes aiming to eliminate onchoc

SUBMITTER: Michael E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6193962 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature