Real-time analysis of the diphtheria outbreak in forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in Bangladesh.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Between August and December 2017, more than 625,000 Rohingya from Myanmar fled into Bangladesh, settling in informal makeshift camps in Cox's Bazar district and joining 212,000 Rohingya already present. In early November, a diphtheria outbreak hit the camps, with 440 reported cases during the first month. A rise in cases during early December led to a collaboration between teams from Médecins sans Frontières-who were running a provisional diphtheria treatment centre-and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with the goal to use transmission dynamic models to forecast the potential scale of the outbreak and the resulting resource needs.

Methods

We first adjusted for delays between symptom onset and case presentation using the observed distribution of r

SUBMITTER: Finger F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6413455 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature