Reservoir and Transmission Dynamics of Multistrain Bacterial Pathogens: Working Paper

The Question

How can we model the transmission of Streptococcus pneumoniae for public health and policy, capturing the reservoir and transmission dynamics that drive vaccine-induced serotype replacement and the evolution of resistance to antibiotics?

What we found

We developed a flexible ordinary differential equation model that considers factors that are important for bacterial reservoir dynamics and thus for healthcare policy.

Why it matters

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis. It is responsible for a significant disease burden, causing an estimated 700,000 – 1 million under-five deaths each year. Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines can prevent the disease and antibiotics can cure it. However, phenomena such as non-vaccine serotypes replacing vaccine serotypes and antibiotic resistance can limit the effectiveness of policies to reduce the disease burden. We need to understand the reservoir dynamics to predict the impact of healthcare policies on S. pneumoniae.