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bioRxiv · 10.1101/358093

The impact of behavioral interventions on co-infectiondynamics: an exploration of the effects of home isolation

Hendrickx, D. M.·Abrams, S.·Hens, N.
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Abstract

Behavioral changes due to the development of symptoms have been studied in mono-infections. However, in reality, multiple infections are circulating within the same time period and behavioral changes resulting from contraction of one of the diseases affect the dynamics of the other.\n\nThe present study aims at assessing the effect of home isolation on the joint dynamics of two infectious diseases, including co-infection, assuming that the two diseases do not confer cross-immunity. We use an age- and time- structured co-infection model based on partial differential equations. Social contact matrices, describing different mixing patterns of symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals are incorporated into the calculation of the age- and time-specific marginal forces of infection.\n\nTwo scenarios are simulated, assuming that one of the diseases has more severe symptoms than the other. In the first scenario, people stay only at home when having symptoms of the most severe disease. In the second scenario, twice as many people stay at home when having symptoms of the most severe disease than when having symptoms of the other disease.\n\nThe results show that the impact of home isolation on the joint dynamics of two infectious diseases depends on the epidemiological parameters and properties of the diseases (e.g., basic reproduction number, symptom severity). In case both diseases have a low to moderate basic reproduction number, and there is no home isolation for the less severe disease, the final size of the less severe disease increases with the proportion of symptomatic cases of the most severe disease staying at home, after an initial decrease. When twice as many people stay at home when having symptoms of the most severe disease than when having symptoms of the other disease, increasing the proportion staying at home always reduces the final size of both diseases, and the number of co-infections.\n\nIn conclusion, when providing advise if people should stay at home in the context of two or more co-circulating diseases, one has to take into account epidemiological parameters and symptom severity.

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Hendrickx, D. M., Abrams, S., Hens, N.. 2018-06-30. The impact of behavioral interventions on co-infectiondynamics: an exploration of the effects of home isolation. https://doi.org/10.1101/358093

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