Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.

Infectious diseases are often transmitted through local interactions. Yet, both surveillance and control measures are implemented within administrative units. Capturing local transmission processes and spatial coupling between regions from aggregate level data is therefore a technical challenge that...

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Main Authors: Laurie Baker, Jason Matthiopoulos, Thomas Müller, Conrad Freuling, Katie Hampson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220592&type=printable
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author Laurie Baker
Jason Matthiopoulos
Thomas Müller
Conrad Freuling
Katie Hampson
author_facet Laurie Baker
Jason Matthiopoulos
Thomas Müller
Conrad Freuling
Katie Hampson
author_sort Laurie Baker
collection DOAJ
description Infectious diseases are often transmitted through local interactions. Yet, both surveillance and control measures are implemented within administrative units. Capturing local transmission processes and spatial coupling between regions from aggregate level data is therefore a technical challenge that can shed light on both theoretical questions and practical decisions. Fox rabies has been eliminated from much of Europe through oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programmes. The European Union (EU) co-finances ORV to maintain rabies freedom in EU member and border states via a cordon sanitaire. Models to capture local transmission dynamics and spatial coupling have immediate application to the planning of these ORV campaigns and to other parts of the world considering oral vaccination. We fitted a hierarchical Bayesian state-space model to data on three decades of fox rabies cases and ORV campaigns from Eastern Germany. Specifically, we find that (i) combining regional spatial coupling and heterogeneous local transmission allows us to capture regional rabies dynamics; (ii) incursions from other regions account for less than 1% of cases, but allow for re-emergence of disease; (iii) herd immunity achieved through bi-annual vaccination campaigns is short-lived due to population turnover. Together, these findings highlight the need for regular and sustained vaccination efforts and our modelling approach can be used to provide strategic guidance for ORV delivery. Moreover, we show that biological understanding can be gained from inference from partially observed data on wildlife disease.
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spelling doaj-art-b181a17ab35948d9bc26d7a23720e5cf2025-08-23T05:32:41ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032020-01-01155e022059210.1371/journal.pone.0220592Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.Laurie BakerJason MatthiopoulosThomas MüllerConrad FreulingKatie HampsonInfectious diseases are often transmitted through local interactions. Yet, both surveillance and control measures are implemented within administrative units. Capturing local transmission processes and spatial coupling between regions from aggregate level data is therefore a technical challenge that can shed light on both theoretical questions and practical decisions. Fox rabies has been eliminated from much of Europe through oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programmes. The European Union (EU) co-finances ORV to maintain rabies freedom in EU member and border states via a cordon sanitaire. Models to capture local transmission dynamics and spatial coupling have immediate application to the planning of these ORV campaigns and to other parts of the world considering oral vaccination. We fitted a hierarchical Bayesian state-space model to data on three decades of fox rabies cases and ORV campaigns from Eastern Germany. Specifically, we find that (i) combining regional spatial coupling and heterogeneous local transmission allows us to capture regional rabies dynamics; (ii) incursions from other regions account for less than 1% of cases, but allow for re-emergence of disease; (iii) herd immunity achieved through bi-annual vaccination campaigns is short-lived due to population turnover. Together, these findings highlight the need for regular and sustained vaccination efforts and our modelling approach can be used to provide strategic guidance for ORV delivery. Moreover, we show that biological understanding can be gained from inference from partially observed data on wildlife disease.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220592&type=printable
spellingShingle Laurie Baker
Jason Matthiopoulos
Thomas Müller
Conrad Freuling
Katie Hampson
Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.
PLoS ONE
title Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.
title_full Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.
title_fullStr Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.
title_full_unstemmed Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.
title_short Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes.
title_sort local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in european foxes
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220592&type=printable
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