Estimating under-observation and the full size of the 2016 Zika epidemic in Rio de Janeiro

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 12;13(10):e0205001. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205001. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The 2015-16 Zika epidemic spread quickly from north to south in Brazil. Two striking features were the much higher incidence in young adult women due to sexual transmission, and the serious congenital malformations and miscarriages associated to Zika infection in pregnant women. In this paper we use case reporting data along with live-birth records to reconstruct the full size of the epidemic through a Bayesian probabilistic graph model representing the Zika transmission probabilities of observation (case reporting) and of birth loss (through miscarriage or abortion). We find that the probability of observing (reporting) a Zika case is different between men and women and ranges between 10 to 13%. From these estimates we reconstruct the full size of the Zika epidemic in Rio de Janeiro in 2015-16.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Bayes Theorem
  • Brazil / epidemiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Incidence
  • Male
  • Zika Virus Infection / epidemiology*
  • Zika Virus Infection / transmission

Grants and funding

This project has received financial support in the form of a scholarship to Marcio Bastos from Fundação Getúlio Vargas, and equipment in the form of a TESLA GPU card from NVIDIA. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.