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Assessing the relationship between epidemic growth scaling and epidemic size: The 2014–16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa Hasselt University KU Leuven University of Antwerp
We assess the relationship between epidemic size and the scaling of epidemic growth of Ebola epidemics at the level of administrative areas during the 2014–16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. For this purpose, we quantify growth scaling parameters from the ascending phase of Ebola outbreaks comprising at least 7 weeks of epidemic growth. We then study how these parameters are associated with observed epidemic sizes. For validation purposes, we ...
The epidemic volatility index, a novel early warning tool for identifying new waves in an epidemic Institute of Tropical Medicine
Early warning tools are crucial for the timely application of intervention strategies and the mitigation of the adverse health, social and economic effects associated with outbreaks of epidemic potential such as COVID-19. This paper introduces, the Epidemic Volatility Index (EVI), a new, conceptually simple, early warning tool for oncoming epidemic waves. EVI is based on the volatility of newly reported cases per unit of time, ideally per ...
Epidemic of diarrhoea caused by porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus in Italy Ghent University
There was an epidemic of diarrhoea affecting pigs of all ages in Italy between May 2005 and June 2006. In 63 herds the cause was confirmed as porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus by electron microscopy, immunoelectron microscopy, PCR and serology. Watery diarrhoea without mucus and blood was usually associated with a reduction of feed consumption. in farrowing-to-weaning herds, diarrhoea affected the sows and suckling piglets, and the mortality in ...
The HIV Epidemic in Southern Africa - Is an AIDS-Free Generation Possible? Hasselt University
Southern Africa, home to about 20 % of the global burden of infection continues to experience high rates of new HIV infection despite substantial programmatic scale-up of treatment and prevention interventions. While several countries in the region have had substantial reductions in HIV infection, almost half a million new infections occurred in this region in 2012. Sexual transmission remains the dominant mode of transmission. A recent national ...
Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight mass spectrometry for rapid detection of isolates belonging to the epidemic clones Achromobacter xylosoxidans ST137 and Achromobacter ruhlandii DES from cystic fibrosis patients Ghent University Vrije Universiteit Brussel
On the estimation of the reproduction number based on misreported epidemic data Hasselt University KU Leuven University of Antwerp
Epidemic data often suffer from underreporting and delay in reporting. In this paper, we investigated the impact of delays and underreporting on estimates of reproduction number. We used a thinned version of the epidemic renewal equation to describe the epidemic process while accounting for the underlying reporting system. Assuming a constant reporting parameter, we used different delay patterns to represent the delay structure in our model. ...
Liver transplantation during the COVID-19 epidemic : recommendations from the Belgian Liver Intestine Transplant Committee (BeLIAC) Ghent University KU Leuven University of Antwerp
Since January 2020, the Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has dramatically impacted the world. In March 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic reached Belgium creating uncertainty towards all aspects of life. There has been an impressive capacity and solidarity of all healthcare professionals to acutely reconvert facilities to treat these patients. In the context of liver transplantation (LTx), concerns are raised about organ donation ...
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa: thinking ahead on programmatic tasks and related operational research. Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Until now, we have all been desperately trying to run behind the HIV/AIDS epidemic and catch up with it, but despite all our efforts, the epidemic remains well ahead of us. In 2010, the antiretroviral treatment (ART) gap was about 60%, AIDS-related deaths were almost two million a year, and on top of these figures, for every one person started on ART, there were two new HIV infections. What is needed to change this situation is to think ahead of ...
Incorporating fuzziness in spatial susceptible-infected epidemic models Ghent University
In this paper we propose a coupled-map lattice for modelling epidemic spread in a fuzzy setting. The presented model complies with the need for adequate modelling tools to describe and/or predict spatio-temporal phenomena, following the growing availability of spatio-temporal data. Furthermore, our approach does not rely on partial differential equations making it particularly suited to model epidemics in a fuzzy setting. It will be shown that ...