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BMC. Inferring the potential risks of H7N9 infection by spatiotemporally characterizing bird migration and poultry distribution in eastern China

Giuseppe

Emeritus
[Source: BioMedCentral, full PDF document: (LINK). Abstract, edited.]


Inferring the potential risks of H7N9 infection by spatiotemporally characterizing bird migration and poultry distribution in eastern China


Infectious Diseases of Poverty 2013, 2:8 doi:10.1186/2049-9957-2-8
Benyun Shi (byshi@comp.hkbu.edu.hk) - Shang Xia (sxia@comp.hkbu.edu.hk) - Guo-Jing Yang (guojingyang@hotmail.com) - Xiao-Nong Zhou (ipdzhouxn@sh163.net) - Jiming Liu (jiming@comp.hkbu.edu.hk)

ISSN 2049-9957

Article type: Research Article - Submission date 24 April 2013 - Acceptance date 28 April 2013 - Publication date 3 May 2013
Article URL http://www.idpjournal.com/content/2/1/8

This peer-reviewed article can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below).

For information about publishing your research in Infectious Diseases of Poverty or any BioMed Central journal, go to http://www.idpjournal.com/authors/instructions/

For information about other BioMed Central publications go to http://www.biomedcentral.com/


Abstract

Background

In view of the rapid geographic spread and the increased number of confirmed cases of novel influenza A(H7N9) virus infections in eastern China, we developed a diffusion model to spatiotemporally characterize the impacts of bird migration and poultry distribution on the geographic spread of H7N9 infection.


Methods

The three types of infection risks were estimated for 12 weeks, from February 4 to April 28, 2013, including (i) the risk caused by bird migration, (ii) the risk caused by poultry distribution, and (iii) the integrated risk caused by both bird migration and poultry distribution. To achieve this, we first developed a method for estimating the likelihood of bird migration based on available environmental and meteorological data. Then, we adopted a computational mobility model to estimate poultry distribution based on annual poultry production and consumption of each province/municipality. Finally, the spatiotemporal risk maps were created based on the integrated impact of both bird migration and poultry distribution.


Results

In the study of risk estimation caused by bird migration, the likelihood matrix was estimated based on the 7-day temperature, from February 4 to April 28, 2013. It was found the estimated migrant birds mainly appear in the southeastern provinces of Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu during Weeks 1 to 4, and Week 6, followed by appearing in central eastern provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, and Tianjin during Weeks 7 to 9, and finally appear in northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang during Weeks 10 to 12. In the study of risk caused by poultry distribution, poultry distribution matrix was created to show the probability of poultry distribution. Although the fact that the majority of the initial infections are reported in Shanghai and Jiangsu province, the relative risk of H7N9 infection estimated based on the poultry distribution model predicted that Jiangsu may have a slightly higher likelihood of H7N9 infection than that in Zhejiang and Shanghai, if we only take the probability of poultry distribution into consideration.
In the study of integrated risk caused by both bird migration and poultry distribution, the higher risk in southeastern provinces occurred during the first 8 weeks, and that in central eastern provinces appeared during Weeks 8 to 12, and that in northeastern provinces since Week 12. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate the poultry markets as long as the poultry-to-poultry transmission is not so well understood.


Conclusion

With reference to the reported infection cases, the demonstrated risk mapping results will provide guidance in active surveillance and control of human H7N9 infections by taking intensive intervention in poultry markets.

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