چکیده (انگلیسی):

The average spatial distance between transmission-linked cases is a fundamental property of infectiousdisease dispersal. However, the distance between a case and their infector is rarely measurable. Contact-tracing investigations are resource intensive or even impossible, particularly when only a subset of casesare detected. Here, we developed an approach that uses onset dates, the generation time distribution andlocation information to estimate the mean transmission distance. We tested our method using outbreaksimulations. We then applied it to the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak in Cumbria, UK, and comparedour results to contact-tracing activities. In simulations with a true mean distance of 106 m, the averagemean distance estimated was 109 m when cases were fully observed (95% range of 71–142). Estimatesremained consistent with the true mean distance when only five percent of cases were observed, (averageestimate of 128 m, 95% range 87–165). Estimates were robust to spatial heterogeneity in the underlyingpopulation. We estimated that both the mean and the standard deviation of the transmission distanceduring the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak was 8.9 km (95% CI: 8.4 km–9.7 km). Contact-tracing activitiesfound similar values of 6.3 km (5.2km–7.4 km) and 11.2 km (9.5 km–12.8 km), respectively. We were alsoable to capture the drop in mean transmission distance over the course of the outbreak. Our approach isapplicable across diseases, robust to under-reporting and can inform interventions and surveillance.© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).