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Article
Interactions between serotypes of dengue highlight epidemiological impact of cross-immunity
Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2013)
  • Nicholas G Reich, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • Sourya Shrestha
  • Aaron A King
  • Pejman Rohani
  • Justin Lessler
  • Siripen Kalayanarooj
  • In-Kyu Yoon
  • Robert Gibbons
  • Donald S Burke
  • Derek AT Cummings
Abstract
Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus of humans, infects over 50 million people annually. Infection with any of the four dengue serotypes induces protective immunity to that serotype, but does not confer long-term protection against infection by other serotypes. The immunological interactions between sero- types are of central importance in understanding epidemiological dynamics and anticipating the impact of dengue vaccines. We analysed a 38-year time series with 12 197 serotyped dengue infections from a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. Using novel mechanistic models to represent different hypothesized immune interactions between serotypes, we found strong evidence that infec- tion with dengue provides substantial short-term cross-protection against other serotypes (approx. 1–3 years). This is the first quantitative evidence that short-term cross-protection exists since human experimental infection studies performed in the 1950s. These findings will impact strategies for designing dengue vaccine studies, future multi-strain modelling efforts, and our understanding of evolutionary pressures in multi-strain disease systems. 
Keywords
  • dengue,
  • time series,
  • SIR models,
  • epidemiology,
  • biostatistics
Publication Date
2013
Citation Information
Nicholas G Reich, Sourya Shrestha, Aaron A King, Pejman Rohani, et al.. "Interactions between serotypes of dengue highlight epidemiological impact of cross-immunity" Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/nicholas_reich/12/