Shigellosis seasonality and transmission characteristics in different areas of China: A modelling study

In China, the burden of shigellosis is unevenly distributed, notably across various ages and geographical areas. Shigellosis temporal trends appear to be seasonal. We should clarify seasonal warnings and regional transmission patterns.

This study adopted a Logistic model to assess the seasonality and a dynamics model to compare the transmission in different areas. The next-generation matrix was used to calculate the effective reproduction number (R _eff) to quantify the transmissibility.

In China, the rate of shigellosis fell from 35.12 cases per 100,000 people in 2005 to 7.85 cases per 100,000 people in 2017, peaking in June and August. After simulation by the Logistic model, the 'peak time' is mainly concentrated from mid-June to mid-July. China's 'early warning time' is primarily focused on from April to May. We predict the 'peak time' of shigellosis is the 6.30th month and the 'early warning time' is 3.87th month in 2021. According to the dynamics model results, the water/food transfer pathway has been mostly blocked off. The transmissibility of different regions varies greatly, such as the mean R _eff of Longde County (3.76) is higher than Xiamen City (3.15), higher than Chuxiong City (2.52), and higher than Yichang City (1.70).

The 'early warning time' for shigellosis in China is from April to May every year, and it may continue to advance in the future, such as the early warning time in 2021 is in mid-March. Furthermore, we should focus on preventing and controlling the person-to-person route of shigellosis and stratified deploy prevention and control measures according to the regional transmission.