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Article: Sampling bias in the molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis. (Research).
- Article from:
- Emerging Infectious Diseases
- Article date:
- April 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. National Center for Infectious Diseases. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Among the goals of the molecular epidemiology of infectious disease are to quantify the extent of ongoing transmission of infectious agents and to identify host- and strain-specific risk factors for disease spread. I demonstrate the potential bias in estimates of recent transmission and the impact of risk factors for clustering by using computer simulations to reconstruct populations of tuberculosis patients and sample from them. The bias consistently results in underestimating recent transmission and the impact of risk factors for recent transmission.
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Molecular epidemiology makes use of the genetic diversity within strains of infectious ...