↓ Skip to main content

Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens

Overview of attention for article published in PLoS Biology, July 2015
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#1 of 9,251)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Readers on

mendeley
501 Mendeley
citeulike
2 CiteULike
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens
Published in
PLoS Biology, July 2015
DOI 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198
Pubmed ID
Authors

Andrew F. Read, Susan J. Baigent, Claire Powers, Lydia B. Kgosana, Luke Blackwell, Lorraine P. Smith, David A. Kennedy, Stephen W. Walkden-Brown, Venugopal K. Nair

Abstract

Could some vaccines drive the evolution of more virulent pathogens? Conventional wisdom is that natural selection will remove highly lethal pathogens if host death greatly reduces transmission. Vaccines that keep hosts alive but still allow transmission could thus allow very virulent strains to circulate in a population. Here we show experimentally that immunization of chickens against Marek's disease virus enhances the fitness of more virulent strains, making it possible for hyperpathogenic strains to transmit. Immunity elicited by direct vaccination or by maternal vaccination prolongs host survival but does not prevent infection, viral replication or transmission, thus extending the infectious periods of strains otherwise too lethal to persist. Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 16,185 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 501 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 9 2%
United Kingdom 5 <1%
Germany 1 <1%
Switzerland 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Portugal 1 <1%
Norway 1 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Unknown 481 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 100 20%
Researcher 84 17%
Student > Bachelor 51 10%
Student > Master 49 10%
Other 31 6%
Other 91 18%
Unknown 95 19%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 148 30%
Medicine and Dentistry 45 9%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 45 9%
Immunology and Microbiology 39 8%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 33 7%
Other 72 14%
Unknown 119 24%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 12253. 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 29 April 2024.
All research outputs
#109
of 25,809,907 outputs
Outputs from PLoS Biology
#1
of 9,251 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1
of 275,412 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLoS Biology
#1
of 75 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,809,907 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 9,251 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 48.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% 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 275,412 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 75 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.