A note on parameter estimation for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease epidemic models

Statistics in Medicine
Paul Clarke, Azra C Ghani

Abstract

A recent series of papers has raised issues regarding estimation of the key epidemiological parameters of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from fitting survival models to case data. In particular, it was stated that the scale of the epidemic cannot be estimated and must be fixed in any analysis. We show that this problem is an artefact of the approximate likelihood used in these papers to facilitate model-fitting, and is not a concern if estimation is based on the full likelihood. We also address comments in these papers regarding the choice of incubation period distribution.

References

Jan 16, 1997·Nature·S N CousensP G Smith
Jan 28, 1999·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·A C GhaniR M Anderson
Aug 19, 2000·Nature·A C GhaniR M Anderson
Oct 27, 2001·Science·J N d'AignauxP G Smith
Dec 31, 2002·The Lancet Infectious Diseases·Philip J Gerrish, J Gerardo García-Lerma
Apr 26, 2003·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Azra C GhaniRoy M Anderson
Apr 30, 2003·BMC Infectious Diseases·Azra C GhaniRoy M Anderson
Dec 3, 2003·BMC Infectious Diseases·Michael S HarneyMichael Farrell
Jan 15, 2004·Emerging Infectious Diseases·Peter Bacchetti
Jan 15, 2004·The Lancet Infectious Diseases·Sara L Thomas, Andrew J Hall
Jun 29, 2004·The Journal of Pathology·David A HiltonJames W Ironside
Aug 12, 2004·BMC Infectious Diseases·Pierre-Yves BoëlleAlain-Jacques Valleron
Jan 15, 2005·International Journal of Epidemiology·Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Annick Alpérovitch

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