Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2005 Sep 22;2(4):281-93.
doi: 10.1098/rsif.2005.0042.

Perspectives on the basic reproductive ratio

J M Heffernan  1 , R J Smith, L M Wahl
Affiliations
Review

Perspectives on the basic reproductive ratio

J M Heffernan et al. J R Soc Interface. .

Abstract

The basic reproductive ratio, R0, is defined as the expected number of secondary infections arising from a single individual during his or her entire infectious period, in a population of susceptibles. This concept is fundamental to the study of epidemiology and within-host pathogen dynamics. Most importantly, R0 often serves as a threshold parameter that predicts whether an infection will spread. Related parameters which share this threshold behaviour, however, may or may not give the true value of R0. In this paper we give a brief overview of common methods of formulating R0 and surrogate threshold parameters from deterministic, non-structured models. We also review common means of estimating R0 from epidemiological data. Finally, we survey the recent use of R0 in assessing emerging diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and avian influenza, a number of recent livestock diseases, and vector-borne diseases malaria, dengue and West Nile virus.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Anderson R.M, May R.M. Oxford University Press; Oxford: 1991. Infectious diseases of humans: dynamics and control.
    1. Barbour A.D, Kafetzaki M. A host–parasite model yielding heterogeneous parasite loads. J. Math. Biol. 1993;31:157–176. - PubMed
    1. Blower S.M, Chou T. Modeling the emergence of the “Hot Zones”: tuberculosis and the amplification dynamics of drug resistance. Nat. Med. 2004;10:1111–1116. - PubMed
    1. Blower S.M, Porco T.C, Darby G. Predicting and preventing the emergence of antiviral drug resistance in HSV-2. Nat. Med. 1998;4:673–678. - PubMed
    1. Böckh R. Statistik des Jahres 1884. P. Stankiewicz; Berlin: 1886. Statistisches Fahrbuch der Stadt Berlin, Zwölfter Jahrgang; pp. 30–31.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources