TY - JOUR
T1 - Evolution and emergence of infectious diseases in theoretical and real-world networks
AU - Leventhal, Gabriel E.
AU - Hill, Alison L.
AU - Nowak, Martin A.
AU - Bonhoeffer, Sebastian
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Jan Humplik, Marcel Salathé, Nicholas Christakis and Jonas Liechti for helpful discussions. S.B. thanks the Swiss National Science Foundation (133129) and the European Research Council (PBDR-268540). M. N. received support from the John Tem-pleton Foundation. M. N. and A. H. received support from the Foundational Questions in Evolutionary Biology Fund.
PY - 2015/1
Y1 - 2015/1
N2 - One of the most important advancements in theoretical epidemiology has been the development of methods that account for realistic host population structure. The central finding is that heterogeneity in contact networks, such as the presence of € superspreaders €, accelerates infectious disease spread in real epidemics. Disease control is also complicated by the continuous evolution of pathogens in response to changing environments and medical interventions. It remains unclear, however, how population structure influences these adaptive processes. Here we examine the evolution of infectious disease in empirical and theoretical networks. We show that the heterogeneity in contact structure, which facilitates the spread of a single disease, surprisingly renders a resident strain more resilient to invasion by new variants. Our results suggest that many host contact structures suppress invasion of new strains and may slow disease adaptation. These findings are important to the natural history of disease evolution and the spread of drug-resistant strains.
AB - One of the most important advancements in theoretical epidemiology has been the development of methods that account for realistic host population structure. The central finding is that heterogeneity in contact networks, such as the presence of € superspreaders €, accelerates infectious disease spread in real epidemics. Disease control is also complicated by the continuous evolution of pathogens in response to changing environments and medical interventions. It remains unclear, however, how population structure influences these adaptive processes. Here we examine the evolution of infectious disease in empirical and theoretical networks. We show that the heterogeneity in contact structure, which facilitates the spread of a single disease, surprisingly renders a resident strain more resilient to invasion by new variants. Our results suggest that many host contact structures suppress invasion of new strains and may slow disease adaptation. These findings are important to the natural history of disease evolution and the spread of drug-resistant strains.
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U2 - 10.1038/ncomms7101
DO - 10.1038/ncomms7101
M3 - Article
C2 - 25592476
AN - SCOPUS:84922751993
VL - 6
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
M1 - 6101
ER -