What is stirring in the reservoir? Modelling mechanisms of henipavirus circulation in fruit bat hosts
Abstract
Pathogen circulation among reservoir hosts is a precondition for zoonotic spillover. Unlike the acute, high morbidity infections typical in spillover hosts, infected reservoir hosts often exhibit low morbidity and mortality. Although it has been proposed that reservoir host infections may be persistent with recurrent episodes of shedding, direct evidence is often lacking. We construct a generalized SEIR (susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered) framework encompassing 46 sub-models representing the full range of possible transitions among those four states of infection and immunity. We then use likelihood-based methods to fit these models to nine years of longitudinal data on henipavirus serology from a captive colony of Eidolon helvum bats in Ghana. We find that reinfection is necessary to explain observed dynamics; that acute infectious periods may be very short (hours to days); that immunity, if present, lasts about 1–2 years; and that recurring latent infection is likely. Although quantitative inference is sensitive to assumptions about serology, qualitative predictions are robust. Our novel approach helps clarify mechanisms of viral persistence and circulation in wild bats, including estimated ranges for key parameters such as the basic reproduction number and the duration of the infectious period. Our results inform how future field-based and experimental work could differentiate the processes of viral recurrence and reinfection in reservoir hosts.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1098/rstb.2019.0021
Entities
People
- Alison J. Peel
- Andrew A Cunningham
- Daniel J. Becker
- David T. S. Hayman
- Emma E Glennon
- James L. N. Wood
- Louise Gibson
- Olivier Restif
- Raina K. Plowright
- Richard D. Suu-ire
- Romain Garnier
Organizations
- AXA Research Fund
- Alborada Trust
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Division of Environmental Biology
- Gates Cambridge Trust
- Georgetown University
- Griffith University
- Indiana University
- Massey University
- Montana State University
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences
- Royal Society Te Apārangi
- University of Cambridge
- Zoological Society of London