Estimating the impact of influenza on the epidemiological dynamics of SARS-CoV-2

PeerJ

article

Matthieu Domenech de Cellès¹  Jean-Sebastien Casalegno²  Bruno Lina²  Lulla Opatowski⁴ 

[1] Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology;Laboratoire de Virologie des HCL, IAI, CNR des Virus à Transmission Respiratoire ,(dont la grippe) Hôpital de la Croix-Rousse F-69317 Lyon Cedex 04;Virpath, Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie ,(CIRI), Université de Lyon Inserm U1111;Université Paris-Saclay;Institut Pasteur

关键词: SARS-CoV-2;    COVID-19;    Influenza;    Virus–virus interaction;    Mathematical modeling;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.12566

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

As in past pandemics, co-circulating pathogens may play a role in the epidemiology of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In particular, experimental evidence indicates that influenza infection can up-regulate the expression of ACE2—the receptor of SARS-CoV-2 in human cells—and facilitate SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here we hypothesized that influenza impacted the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 during the early 2020 epidemic of COVID-19 in Europe. To test this hypothesis, we developed a population-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and of COVID-19 mortality, which simultaneously incorporated the impact of non-pharmaceutical control measures and of influenza on the epidemiological dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. Using statistical inference methods based on iterated filtering, we confronted this model with mortality incidence data in four European countries (Belgium, Italy, Norway, and Spain) to systematically test a range of assumptions about the impact of influenza. We found consistent evidence for a 1.8–3.4-fold (uncertainty range across countries: 1.1 to 5.0) average population-level increase in SARS-CoV-2 transmission associated with influenza during the period of co-circulation. These estimates remained robust to a variety of alternative assumptions regarding the epidemiological traits of SARS-CoV-2 and the modeled impact of control measures. Although further confirmatory evidence is required, our results suggest that influenza could facilitate the spread and hamper effective control of SARS-CoV-2. More generally, they highlight the possible role of co-circulating pathogens in the epidemiology of COVID-19.

【 授权许可】

CC BY