SoylentNews

fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      In early June the Guardian reported [theguardian.com] that:

The British Olympian Greg Rutherford has frozen a sample of his sperm before attending the Olympic Games in Rio because of his concerns over the Zika virus.

      Rutherford's partner, Susie Verrill, said the couple, who have a son called Milo, decided to freeze his sperm because they wanted to have more children in the future and were worried about the risks of the disease. [...]

      Now, in a first-of-its-kind study, a University of Miami researcher and others have created a mathematical model in an attempt to determine how much of a role sexual transmission plays on the spread and control of Zika.

      Science Daily [sciencedaily.com] reports:

By itself, Shigui Ruan's model is not intended to measure the rates of Zika transmission but to delineate the virus's possible pathways and to help determine which of those transmission routes -- either mosquito-borne or sexual transmission--is most important in investigating the spread and control of the virus.

      [...]

      To build his model, he and his team combined the two modes of transmission into a set of equations, and then calibrated their model to Zika epidemic rates -- obtained through the Pan American Health Organization -- in Brazil, Colombia, and El Salvador. Using factors such as the biting and mortality rates of the Aedes aegypti and how partners protect themselves during a sexual encounter, the researchers then produced what is called a "basic reproduction number," essentially the number of infections resulting from one initial infection in a population.

      The team found that the average number of new infections that can be traced directly back to a single case of Zika comes out to 2, and that sexual transmission accounts for only 3 percent of new cases.

      Their results are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

      Their model can help determine where to target management effort. Consequently, from this model, it appears that mosquito control should remain the most important mitigation activity for control of Zika.

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