Patterns of Enteric Coinfection in Infants Under 1 Year of Age in LMIC Countries
Klopfer, Connor L
Klopfer, Connor L
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Abstract
Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of childhood mortality for children under 5 years of age according to the WHO. Some studies have found that the average number of pathogens present in children 0-2 years of age from LMICs is as high as 3.4 in children with diarrhea and 2.4 in children without diarrhea[1]. With this high pathogen burden, it is possible that an interaction effect occurs between enteric pathogens, leading to a pattern or sequence of co-infections that might together affect health outcomes for young children. To explore this, we use data from the MAL-ED and PROVIDE datasets, containing qPCR data from both diarrheal and non-diarrheal stool samples collected from children aged 0-2 years of age from 8 different locations around the world [1], [2]. Using an ensemble of network configuration models, we find that the pattern of co-infection between certain pathogens is much higher than expected due to random chance given their prevalence in the population. This is the first step in using computational methods to find pathogen co-infections that may predispose children to poor health outcomes during early childhood development. References: [1] J. A. Platts-Mills et al., “Use of quantitative molecular diagnostic methods to assess the aetiology, burden, and clinical characteristics of diarrhoea in children in low-resource settings: a reanalysis of the MAL-ED cohort study,” Lancet Glob. Heal., vol. 6, no. 12, pp. e1309–e1318, 2018. [2] B. D. Kirkpatrick et al., “The ‘Performance of Rotavirus and Oral Polio Vaccines in Developing Countries’ (PROVIDE) study: Description of methods of an interventional study designed to explore complex biologic problems,” Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., vol. 92, no. 4, pp. 744–751, 2015.
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1:00pm-3:00pm
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Graduate
Date
2020-01-01