A renewal equation model to assess roles and limitations of contact tracing for disease outbreak control.

ABSTRACT: We propose a deterministic model capturing essential features of contact tracing as part of public health non-pharmaceutical interventions to mitigate an outbreak of an infectious disease. By incorporating a mechanistic formulation of the processes at the individual level, we obtain an integral equation (delayed in calendar time and advanced in time since infection) for the probability that an infected individual is detected and isolated at any point in time. This is then coupled with a renewal equation for the total incidence to form a closed system describing the transmission dynamics involving contact tracing. We define and calculate basic and effective reproduction numbers in terms of pathogen characteristics and contact tracing implementation constraints. When applied to the case of S

SUBMITTER: Scarabel F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8025303 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature