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Dynamics of a scrapie outbreak in a flock of Romanov sheep – estimation of transmission parameters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2003

T. J. HAGENAARS ,
C. A. DONNELLY ,
N. M. FERGUSON  and
R. M. ANDERSON
T. J. HAGENAARS
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG
C. A. DONNELLY
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG
N. M. FERGUSON
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG
R. M. ANDERSON
Affiliation:
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG
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Abstract

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Knowledge of epidemiological mechanisms and parameters underlying scrapie transmission in sheep flocks remains very limited at present. Here we introduce a method for fitting stochastic transmission models to outbreak data to estimate bounds on key transmission parameters. We apply this method to data describing an outbreak of scrapie in a closed flock of Romanov sheep. The main findings are that the relative infectiousness of infected animals in this outbreak becomes appreciable early into disease incubation and that the mean incubation period is less than 1·5 years. We also find that the data are consistent with a broad range of values for the basic reproduction number R0 and describe how the boundaries of this range depend on assumptions about the mean incubation period and the contribution to transmission of a long-lived environmental reservoir of infectivity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Epidemiology & Infection , Volume 131 , Issue 2 , October 2003 , pp. 1015 - 1022
Copyright
2003 Cambridge University Press