Sponsor
This study was funded by the US National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, grant number NIH R01AI141554. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Published In
Parasites & Vectors
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2023
Subjects
Taenia solium -- Transmission, Taenia solium-- Treatment, Intelligent agents (Computer software) -- Applications to public health
Abstract
Background
Models can be used to study and predict the impact of interventions aimed at controlling the spread of infectious agents, such as Taenia solium, a zoonotic parasite whose larval stage causes epilepsy and economic loss in many rural areas of the developing nations. To enhance the credibility of model estimates, calibration against observed data is necessary. However, this process may lead to a paradoxical dependence of model parameters on location-specific data, thus limiting the model’s geographic transferability.
Methods
In this study, we adopted a non-local model calibration approach to assess whether it can improve the spatial transferability of CystiAgent, our agent-based model of local-scale T. solium transmission. The calibration dataset for CystiAgent consisted of cross-sectional data on human taeniasis, pig cysticercosis and pig serology collected in eight villages in Northwest Peru. After calibration, the model was transferred to a second group of 21 destination villages in the same area without recalibrating its parameters. Model outputs were compared to pig serology data collected over a period of 2 years in the destination villages during a trial of T. solium control interventions, based on mass and spatially targeted human and pig treatments.
Results
Considering the uncertainties associated with empirical data, the model produced simulated pre-intervention pig seroprevalences that were successfully validated against data collected in 81% of destination villages. Furthermore, the model outputs were able to reproduce validated pig seroincidence values in 76% of destination villages when compared to the data obtained after the interventions. The results demonstrate that the CystiAgent model, when calibrated using a non-local approach, can be successfully transferred without requiring additional calibration.
Conclusions
This feature allows the model to simulate both baseline pre-intervention transmission conditions and the outcomes of control interventions across villages that form geographically homogeneous regions, providing a basis for developing large-scale models representing T. solium transmission at a regional level.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2023 The Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1186/s13071-023-06003-9
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/41024
Citation Details
Pizzitutti, F., Bonnet, G., Gonzales-Gustavson, E., Gabriël, S., Pan, W. K., Gonzalez, A. E., ... & Cysticercosis Working Group in Peru. (2023). Spatial transferability of an agent-based model to simulate Taenia solium control interventions. Parasites & Vectors, 16(1), 410.