Shift in age distribution of dengue fever in Thailand explained
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 07:00
in Health & Medicine
Decreases in birth and death rates explain the shift in age distribution of dengue haemorrhagic fever in Thailand, according to a new paper in this week's open access journal PLoS Medicine. Analysing data from Thailand's 72 provinces to investigate why an increase in the average age of dengue haemorrhagic fever cases has been observed in the country, Derek Cummings from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA and colleagues find that a reduced birth rate and a shift in the age structure of the population can explain the shift in the age distribution of cases, the reduction of the force of infection (the rate at which susceptible individuals become infected), and the increased time between epidemics of dengue haemorrhagic fever...