Understanding the Mechanisms of Serotype Replacement in Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

Diseases, there are a number of different serotypes that can cause infection. The vaccine is often targeted towards one or some of the serotypes. There is accumulating evidence that when serotype-specific vaccines are used, other non-vaccine serotypes may gain a competitive advantage and spread in larger magnitudes. This has raised the concern of serotype replacement when vaccination is used against a single or several serotypes of a disease. In other words, serotypes that not targeted by the vaccine are able to able to fill the ecological niche left open by the vaccine-targeted serotypes. There have been many studies to illustrate the concept of serotype replacement, but none has so far investigated possible mechanisms of serotype replacement. To this end, we propose a mathematical and computation model to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of serotype replacement

Faculty Supervisor:

Seyed Moghadas

Student:

Affan Shoukat

Partner:

Discipline:

Mathematics

Sector:

University:

York University

Program:

Globalink Research Award