Graduation Year

2019

Date of Submission

4-2019

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Mathematical Sciences

Reader 1

Mark Huber

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

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© 2019 Peter J Brody-Moore

Abstract

The continued study of asymptomatic Ebolavirus infection is necessary to develop a more complete understanding of Ebola transmission dynamics. This paper conducts a meta-analysis of eight studies that measure seroprevalence (the number of subjects that test positive for anti-Ebolavirus antibodies in their blood) in subjects with household exposure or known case-contact with Ebola, but that have shown no symptoms. In our two random effects Bayesian hierarchical models, we find estimated seroprevalences of 8.76% and 9.72%, significantly higher than the 3.3% found by a previous meta-analysis of these eight studies. We also produce a variation of this meta-analysis where we exclude two of the eight studies. In this model, we find an estimated seroprevalence of 4.4%, much lower than our first two Bayesian hierarchical models. We believe a random effects model more accurately reflects the heterogeneity between studies and thus asymptomatic Ebola is more seroprevalent than previously believed among subjects with household exposure or known case-contact. However, a strong conclusion cannot be reached on the seriousness of asymptomatic Ebola without an international testing standard and more data collection using this adopted standard.

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