Abbate, Jessica L; Murall, Carmen Lia; Richner, Heinz; Althaus, Christian L (2016). Potential Impact of Sexual Transmission on Ebola Virus Epidemiology: Sierra Leone as a Case Study. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 10(5), e0004676. Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pntd.0004676
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Abbate PLoSNeglTropDis 2016.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution (CC-BY). Download (1MB) | Preview |
BACKGROUND
Sexual transmission of Ebola virus disease (EVD) 6 months after onset of symptoms has been recently documented, and Ebola virus RNA has been detected in semen of survivors up to 9 months after onset of symptoms. As countries affected by the 2013-2015 epidemic in West Africa, by far the largest to date, are declared free of Ebola virus disease (EVD), it remains unclear what threat is posed by rare sexual transmission events that could arise from survivors.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
We devised a compartmental mathematical model that includes sexual transmission from convalescent survivors: a SEICR (susceptible-exposed-infectious-convalescent-recovered) transmission model. We fitted the model to weekly incidence of EVD cases from the 2014-2015 epidemic in Sierra Leone. Sensitivity analyses and Monte Carlo simulations showed that a 0.1% per sex act transmission probability and a 3-month convalescent period (the two key unknown parameters of sexual transmission) create very few additional cases, but would extend the epidemic by 83 days [95% CI: 68-98 days] (p < 0.0001) on average. Strikingly, a 6-month convalescent period extended the average epidemic by 540 days (95% CI: 508-572 days), doubling the current length, despite an insignificant rise in the number of new cases generated.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE
Our results show that reductions in the per sex act transmission probability via abstinence and condom use should reduce the number of sporadic sexual transmission events, but will not significantly reduce the epidemic size and may only minimally shorten the length of time the public health community must maintain response preparedness. While the number of infectious survivors is expected to greatly decline over the coming months, our results show that transmission events may still be expected for quite some time as each event results in a new potential cluster of non-sexual transmission. Precise measurement of the convalescent period is thus important for planning ongoing surveillance efforts.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Abbate, Jessica Lee, Richner, Heinz, Althaus, Christian |
Subjects: |
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 360 Social problems & social services 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology |
ISSN: |
1935-2727 |
Publisher: |
Public Library of Science |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Doris Kopp Heim |
Date Deposited: |
10 May 2016 09:40 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 14:56 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1371/journal.pntd.0004676 |
PubMed ID: |
27135922 |
Additional Information: |
Abbate and Murall contributed equally to this work. |
BORIS DOI: |
10.7892/boris.82142 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/82142 |
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