Estimation of the basic reproduction number to assess the impact of precipitation change on the risk of an anthrax outbreak among livestock in Karnataka, India.

Abstract

The basic reproduction number (R0) is a measure of an infectious pathogen's infectiousness or transmissibility. It is the number of instances caused directly by an infected individual over the course of its infectious period. R0 is a statistic that is used to determine a disease's potential to spread within a population. It has been regarded as one of the most basic and widely used metrics for studying infectious disease dynamics. In the present study, we focused on the basic reproduction number (R0), that describes an epidemic's transmission potential. Data was obtained from the Dept. of animal husbandry, Bengaluru, Karnataka. For risk assessment and to explore the influence of changes in precipitation levels, disease incidence data was categorized into two groups, average annual precipitation above and below normal (1151mm). R0 package was used for the purpose of calculating the basic reproduction number. The variation in R0 ranged from 1.06 to 1.78 with average annual precipitation above normal and 0.76 to 2.08 with average annual precipitation below normal. The objective was to evaluate the R0 of anthrax disease among livestock in Karnataka corresponding to changes in precipitation level and to describe the variation of R0, to assess an infectious disease's ability to infect the population, and to determine the fraction of the population that should be vaccinated in order to prevent epidemic growth.