A simple stochastic model with environmental transmission explains multi-year periodicity in outbreaks of avian flu
Avian influenza virus reveals persistent and recurrent outbreaks in North American wild waterfowl, and exhibits major outbreaks at 2-8 years intervals in duck populations. The standard susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) framework, which includes seasonal migration and reproduction, but lacks envir...
| Published in: | PLoS ONE |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/11370/2d309be1-c652-47ee-90ac-4437c220c889 https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/2d309be1-c652-47ee-90ac-4437c220c889 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028873 https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/56946562/journal.pone.0028873.PDF |
| Summary: | Avian influenza virus reveals persistent and recurrent outbreaks in North American wild waterfowl, and exhibits major outbreaks at 2-8 years intervals in duck populations. The standard susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) framework, which includes seasonal migration and reproduction, but lacks environmental transmission, is unable to reproduce the multi-periodic patterns of avian influenza epidemics. In this paper, we argue that a fully stochastic theory based on environmental transmission provides a simple, plausible explanation for the phenomenon of multi-year periodic outbreaks of avian flu. Our theory predicts complex fluctuations with a dominant period of 2 to 8 years which essentially depends on the intensity of environmental transmission. A wavelet analysis of the observed data supports this prediction. Furthermore, using master equations and van Kampen system-size expansion techniques, we provide an analytical expression for the spectrum of stochastic fluctuations, revealing how the outbreak period varies with the environmental transmission. |
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