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Quantification of the Effects of Age on the Dose Response of Variola major in Suckling Mice
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Quantification of the Effects of Age on the Dose Response of Variola major in Suckling Mice

Mark H Weir and Charles N Haas
Human and ecological risk assessment, v 15(6), pp 1245-1256
23 Nov 2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10807030903304906
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel

Abstract

Variola major age dependency smallpox dose response bioterrorism
Dose-response data for Variola major (V. major), the causative agent of smallpox, were obtained from the open literature, summarized, and fitted with three dose-response models. It is known from prior outbreak experience that there is generally a difference in infectivity of the agent and its subsequent mortality depending on the age of the patient. A source of animal dose-response data were found with age delineation for the exposure group (suckling mice, intraperitoneal exposure). This delineation was used to adapt current dose-response models to include an age dependency parameter. The degree of the models' fit to the data was ascertained using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). The effect of host age could be described quantitatively using modifications to the beta Poisson and exponential dose-response models. The modifications improvement in the accuracy of risk prediction by 72% for the beta Poisson model and 7% for the exponential model, compared to the original (unmodified) models.

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11 citations in Web of Science
11 citations in Scopus

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#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Web of Science research areas
Biodiversity Conservation
Environmental Sciences
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