Abstract
The ongoing Zika virus (ZIKV) in the Americas has been a serious public health emergency since 2015. Since Zika is a vector-borne disease, the size of the vector population in the affected area plays a key role in controlling the scale of the outbreak. The primary vectors for Zika, the Aedes Agypti and Aedes Albopictus species of mosquitoes, are highly sensitive to climatic conditions for survival and reproduction. Additionally, increased international travel over the years has caused the disease outbreak to turn into a pandemic affecting five continents. The mosquito population and the human travel patterns are the two main driving forces affecting the persistence and resurgence of Zika and other vector-borne diseases. This paper presents an enhanced dynamic model that simulates the 2013–2014 French Polynesia Zika outbreak incorporating the temperature dependent mosquito ecology and the local transit network (flights and ferries). The study highlights the importance of human travel patterns and mosquito population dynamics in a disease outbreak. The results predict that more than 85% of the population was infected by the end of the outbreak and it lasted for more than five months across the islands. The basic reproduction number ( R 0 ) for the outbreak is also calculated using the next-generation-matrix for validation purposes. Additionally, this study is focused on measuring the impact of intervention strategies like reducing the mosquito population, preventing mosquito bites and imposing travel bans. French Polynesia was chosen as the region of interest for the study because of available demographic, climate and transit data. Additionally, results from similar studies for the region are available for validation and comparison. However, the proposed system can be used to study the transmission dynamics of any vector-borne disease in any geographic region by altering the climatic and demographic data, and the transit network.
Highlights
The 2015–2016 Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic in the Americas was one of the largest vector borne disease outbreaks with over a million reported cases
This study presents an enhanced dynamic model that simulates the transmission of Zika in 23 islands of French Polynesia incorporating a temperature dependent mosquito ecology instead of using a static vector population and the local transit network in French Polynesia
Understanding the dynamics of the disease requires the investigation of the major drivers of a vector-borne disease outbreak: the mosquito population and human travel patterns
Summary
The 2015–2016 Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic in the Americas was one of the largest vector borne disease outbreaks with over a million reported cases. Some studies have partially shown that the enhanced viremia of Zika in humans is a result of a new mutation of the virus acquired after the Micronesia outbreak in 2007 [2,3]. The asymptomatic nature and difficult differential diagnosis of the disease lead to inconsistent case reporting. This makes predicting and controlling the scale of a Zika epidemic challenging, and necessitates computational methods to simulate outbreaks, study the transmission dynamics of the disease, and develop effective intervention strategies
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