Infectious reactivation of cytomegalovirus explaining age- and sex-specific patterns of seroprevalence

A large proportion of the population is latently infected with CMV, and this proportion increases gradually with age. The virus can reactivate, but it is not clear what effect such reactivation has on the infectiousness of the host. Antibody titers can be used to distinguish between uninfected, latently infected, and recently reactivated or infected individuals. As these titers do not clearly separate these categories, we start by fitting an age-dependent mixture model to Ab titer data. Next, we construct a PDE model (with age and time as independent variables) to model CMV transmission in the population. This model can be fit to Ab titer data (assuming a steady state), using age- and sex-specific contact patterns to model novel infections. We compare models with and without infectious reactivation and find that infectious reactivation models describe the data best.

Recommended citation: van Boven, M et al (2017). "Infectious reactivation of cytomegalovirus explaining age- and sex-specific patterns of seroprevalence." PLOS Computational Biology. 13(9): e1005719.
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