Quantifying the consequences of measles-induced immune modulation for whooping cough epidemiology.

ABSTRACT: Measles, an acute viral disease, continues to be an important cause of childhood mortality worldwide. Infection with the measles virus is thought to be associated with a transient but profound period of immune suppression. Recently, it has been claimed that measles-induced immune manipulation lasts for about 30 months and results in increased susceptibility to other co-circulating infectious diseases and more severe disease outcomes upon infection. We tested this hypothesis using model-based inference applied to parallel historical records of measles and whooping cough mortality and morbidity. Specifically, we used maximum likelihood to fit a mechanistic transmission model to incidence data from three different eras, spanning mortality records from 1904 to 1912 and 1922 to 1932 and morbidi

SUBMITTER: Noori N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6553609 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature