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Letter to the editor in response to ‘Seasonality of the transmissibility of hand, foot and mouth disease: a modelling study in Xiamen City, China’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

Zehong Huang
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Mingzhai Wang
Affiliation:
Xiamen Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Xiamen City, Fujian Province, People's Republic of China
Luxia Qiu
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Ning Wang
Affiliation:
Respiratory Department, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
Zeyu Zhao
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Jia Rui
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Yao Wang
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Xingchun Liu
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Mikah Ngwanguong Hannah
Affiliation:
Medical College, Xiamen University, Xiamen City, Fujian Province, People's Republic of China
Benhua Zhao
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Yanhua Su*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Bin Zhao*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, Laboratory Department, Xiang'an Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, People's Republic of China
Tianmu Chen*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Fujian, People's Republic of China
*
Author for correspondence: Tianmu Chen, E-mail: 13698665@qq.com; Yanhua Su, E-mail: suyanhua813@xmu.edu.cn; Bin Zhao, E-mail: 393603468@qq.com
Author for correspondence: Tianmu Chen, E-mail: 13698665@qq.com; Yanhua Su, E-mail: suyanhua813@xmu.edu.cn; Bin Zhao, E-mail: 393603468@qq.com
Author for correspondence: Tianmu Chen, E-mail: 13698665@qq.com; Yanhua Su, E-mail: suyanhua813@xmu.edu.cn; Bin Zhao, E-mail: 393603468@qq.com
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Abstract

Type
Letter to the Editor
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

We reviewed with interest Zhao's letter regarding our article exploring the approach of calculating the effective reproduction number (R eff) [Reference Huang1]. We entirely agree with Zhao et al. that it is essential to calculate the R eff by using the next generation matrix (NGM) approach. Actually, we also commonly used the NGM approach to calculate the reproduction number of other infectious diseases [Reference Cui2].

We did not provide the complex equation of R eff from the NGM approach instead of a simplified equation in our study [Reference Huang1], because in Xiamen City, the values of f, daily br and daily dr were 0.0003 (0.03%), 2.46 × 10−5 and 1.24 × 10−5, respectively, which were much lower than those of ω (1/5), γ (1/14) and γ’ (1/21), respectively. We also calculated the values of R eff by using the simplified equation we used and the two equations provided by Zhao et al., and we found that they were almost the same (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. The values of R eff calculated by three equations in Xiamen City, 2014–2018.

Therefore, we agree to use an accurate approach to estimate the transmissibility of an infectious disease. However, a simplified equation would be easier to be performed by the primary public health department than a complex one.

Footnotes

*

These authors contributed equally to this study.

References

Huang, Z et al. (2019) Seasonality of the transmissibility of hand, foot and mouth disease: a modelling study in Xiamen City, China. Epidemiology and Infection 147, e327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cui, J-A et al. (2020) Global dynamics of an epidemiological model with acute and chronic HCV infections. Applied Mathematics Letters 103, 106203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figure 0

Fig. 1. The values of Reff calculated by three equations in Xiamen City, 2014–2018.