Using Dynamic Stochastic Modelling to Estimate Population Risk Factors in Infectious Disease: The Example of FIV in 15 Cat Populations

Abstract

Our conclusion is that, in host-parasite systems in general, fluctuations due to stochasticity in the transmission process are naturally very large and may alone explain a larger part of the variability in observed disease prevalence between populations than previously expected. Finally, we determined confidence intervals for the simple model parameters that can be used to further aid in management of the disease.