TY - UNPB
T1 - Estimation of age-specific susceptibility to influenza in the Netherlands and its relation to loss of CD8+ T-cell memory
AU - Dorp, Christiaan H van
AU - Woolthuis, Rutger G
AU - Yu, Jeffrey H C
AU - Boer, Rob J. de
AU - Boven, Michiel van
N1 - Authors retain copyright and choose from several distribution/reuse options under which to make the article available (CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, CC0, or no reuse).
PY - 2018/2/5
Y1 - 2018/2/5
N2 - The magnitude of influenza epidemics is largely determined by the number of susceptible individuals at the start of the influenza season. Susceptibility, in turn, is influenced by antigenic drift. The evolution of influenza's B-cell epitopes has been charted thoroughly, and only recently evidence for T-cell driven evolution is accumulating. We investigate the relation between susceptibility to influenza, and antigenic drift at CD8+ T-cell epitopes over a 45-year timespan. We estimate age-specific susceptibility with data reported by general practitioners, using a disease-transmission model in a Bayesian framework. We find large variation in susceptibility, both between seasons and age classes. Although it is often assumed that antigenic drift drives the variation in susceptibility, we do not find evidence for a relation between drift and susceptibility in our data. This suggests that other factors determining the variation in susceptibility play a dominating role, or that complex influenza-infection histories obscure any direct effects.
AB - The magnitude of influenza epidemics is largely determined by the number of susceptible individuals at the start of the influenza season. Susceptibility, in turn, is influenced by antigenic drift. The evolution of influenza's B-cell epitopes has been charted thoroughly, and only recently evidence for T-cell driven evolution is accumulating. We investigate the relation between susceptibility to influenza, and antigenic drift at CD8+ T-cell epitopes over a 45-year timespan. We estimate age-specific susceptibility with data reported by general practitioners, using a disease-transmission model in a Bayesian framework. We find large variation in susceptibility, both between seasons and age classes. Although it is often assumed that antigenic drift drives the variation in susceptibility, we do not find evidence for a relation between drift and susceptibility in our data. This suggests that other factors determining the variation in susceptibility play a dominating role, or that complex influenza-infection histories obscure any direct effects.
KW - epidemiology
U2 - 10.1101/259614
DO - 10.1101/259614
M3 - Preprint
BT - Estimation of age-specific susceptibility to influenza in the Netherlands and its relation to loss of CD8+ T-cell memory
PB - bioRxiv
ER -