The influence of ambient air pollution on the transmission of tuberculosis in Jiangsu, China

Abstract

In this paper, based on the statistical data, we investigate the effects of long-term exposure to ambient particulate air pollution on the transmission dynamics of tuberculosis (TB) in Jiangsu, China by studying the threshold dynamics of the TB epidemic model via the statistical data analytically and numerically. The basic reproduction number R0>1 reveals that TB in Jiangsu, China is an endemic disease and will persist for a long time. And the numerical results show that, in order to control the TB in Jiangsu effectively, we must decrease the depuration coefficient of PM10 in the body, the proportion of TB symptomatic infectious by direct transmission, the reactivation rate of the pre-symptomatic infectious and the effect coefficient of PM10 and MTB inhaled of TB transmission, and increase the uptake coefficient, the recovery rate of the symptomatic/pre-symptomatic infectious and the influence coefficient of PM10 on the body of mortality. Our study shows that PM10 is closely related to the incidence of TB, and the effective control efforts are suggested to focus on increasing close-contact distance and wearing protective mask to decrease the influence of PM10 on the TB transmission, which may shed a new light on understanding the environmental drivers to TB.

Keywords

• Epidemic model
• Basic reproduction number
• Sensitivity analysis
• Markov chain Monte Carlo method
• Control strategies