Differences in epidemic spread patterns of norovirus and influenza seasons of Germany: an application of optical flow analysis in epidemiology

Tabea Stegmaier,Eva Oellingrath,Mirko Himmel,Simon Fraas

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-70973-4

Tabea Stegmaier, Eva Oellingrath + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70973-4

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Abstract

This analysis presents data from a new perspective offering key insights into the spread patterns of norovirus and influenza epidemic events. We utilize optic flow analysis to gain an informed overview of a wealth of statistical epidemiological data and identify trends in movement of influenza waves throughout Germany on the NUTS 3 level (413 locations) which maps municipalities on European level. We show that Influenza and norovirus seasonal outbreak events have a highly distinct pattern. We investigate the quantitative statistical properties of the epidemic patterns and find a shifted distribution in the time between influenza and norovirus seasonal peaks of reported infections over one decade. These findings align with key biological features of both pathogens as shown in the course of this analysis.

Highlights

This analysis presents data from a new perspective offering key insights into the spread patterns of norovirus and influenza epidemic events
A method to observe and describe movement of patterns in videos, to analyze high resolution spatio-temporal epidemic patterns of noro and influenza seasons. (See Methods: Optic flow for details.) Infectious diseases are widespread in our country and history
We found a pattern which could be observed as an alternating transition from norovirus infections to influenza

Summary

Introduction

This analysis presents data from a new perspective offering key insights into the spread patterns of norovirus and influenza epidemic events. We investigate the quantitative statistical properties of the epidemic patterns and find a shifted distribution in the time between influenza and norovirus seasonal peaks of reported infections over one decade. These findings align with key biological features of both pathogens as shown in the course of this analysis. The analysis of these naturally occurring patterns highlights possible distribution paths for potential future epidemic events regardless of origin One of these winter-seasonal diseases is caused by an enveloped single-stranded RNA virus, the influenza virus. The second winter-seasonal disease we studied is caused by an non-enveloped single-stranded RNA virus, the norovirus, which belongs to the Caliciviridae family and is one of the most common causes of gastroenteritis.

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Conclusion