An analysis of the vectorial capacity using moment-generating functions

Abstract

This paper describes a technique for analyzing the stochastic structure of the vectorial capacity using moment--generating functions. In such formulation, for an infectious disease transmitted by a vector, we obtain the generating function for the distribution of the number of infectious contacts (e.g., infectious bites from mosquitoes) between vectors and humans after a contact to a single infected individual. This approach permits us to generally derive the moments of the distribution and, under some conditions, derive the distribution function of the vectorial capacity. A stochastic modeling framework is helpful for analyzing the dynamics of disease spreading, such as performing sensitivity analysis.