There is clear empirical evidence that environmental conditions can influence Ascaris spp. free-living stage development and host reinfection, but the impact of these differences on human infections, and interventions to control them, is variable. A new model framework reflecting four key stages of the A. lumbricoides life cycle, incorporating the effects of rainfall and temperature, is used to describe the level of infection in the human population alongside the environmental egg dynamics. Using data from South Korea and Nigeria, we conclude that settings with extreme fluctuations in rainfall or temperature could exhibit strong seasonal transmission patterns that may be partially masked by the longevity of A. lumbricoides infections in hosts; we go on to demonstrate how seasonally timed mass drug administration (MDA) could impact the outcomes of control strategies. For the South Korean setting the results predict a comparative decrease of 74.5% in mean worm days (the number of days the average individual spend infected with worms across a 12 month period) between the best and worst MDA timings after four years of annual treatment. The model found no significant seasonal effect on MDA in the Nigerian setting due to a narrower annual temperature range and no rainfall dependence. Our results suggest that seasonal variation in egg survival and maturation could be exploited to maximise the impact of MDA in certain settings.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 9. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 October 2019.
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#6,008,741
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Outputs from PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
#3,539
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#91,724
of 495,615 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
#79
of 206 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,411,289 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 82nd percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,454 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 495,615 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 206 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its contemporaries.
