Animal behavior is unique in influencing both components of the process of transmission of disease: exposure to infectious agents, and susceptibility to infection once exposed. To date, the influence of behavior on exposure versus susceptibility has largely been considered separately. Here, we ask whether these two key mechanisms act in concert in natural populations, whereby individuals who ar...

We perform sensitivity analyses on a mathematical model of malaria transmission to determine the relative importance of model parameters to disease transmission and prevalence. We compile two sets of baseline parameter values: one for areas of high transmission and one for low transmission. We compute sensitivity indices of the reproductive number (which measures initial disease transmission) a...

An overlooked aspect of disease ecology is considering how and why animals come into contact with one and other resulting in disease transmission. Mathematical models of disease spread frequently assume mass-action transmission, justified by stating that susceptible and infectious hosts mix readily, and foregoing any detailed description of host movement. Numerous recent studies have recorded, ...

BACKGROUND Transmission models can aid understanding of disease dynamics and are useful in testing the efficiency of control measures. The aim of this study was to formulate an appropriate stochastic Susceptible-Infectious-Resistant/Carrier (SIR) model for Salmonella Typhimurium in pigs and thus estimate the transmission parameters between states. RESULTS The transmission parameters were esti...

the field of vaccinology provides excellent promises to control different infectious and non-infectious diseases. genetic immunization as a new tool in this area by using naked dna has been shown to induce humoral as well as cellular immune responses with high efficiency. this demonstrates the enormous potential of this strategy for vaccination purposes. dna vaccines have been widely used to de...

evidence acquisition a wide variety of treatment regimens exist for acne vulgaris including benzoil peroxide, retinoids, isotretinoids, keratolytic soaps, alpha hydroxy acids, azelaic acid, salicilic acid as well as hormonal, anti-androgen or antiseborrheic treatments. however, none of these methods is free of side effects and their exact role in therapy is not clear. in this paper apart from p...

the pathogenicity of a recent isolate of infectious bursal disease virus (ibdv), ir499, isolated from a nonvaccinated flock with 17.5 % mortality rate in susceptible spf chickens, chickens embryos and broilers was discussed. the molecular characterization of the virus based on the restriction fragment length polymorphism (rflp) pattern was also investigated. the mortality rates were 85% and 22%...

infectious bursal disease (ibd) is a highly contagious disease of chickens caused by the infectious bursal disease virus (ibdv). this study was conducted to characterize three ibdv strains from iran. a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (rt-pcr) procedure was used to amplify a 715-bp fragment of the vp1 gene from ibdv strains. amplified vp1 fragments of the three iranian ibdv strai...

Emerging infectious diseases, and the resurgence of previously controlled infectious disease (e.g., malaria, tuberculosis), are a major focus for public health concern, as well as providing challenges for establishing aetiology and transmission. [...].