@article{19264,
  keywords = {Cause of Death, Comorbidity, Cross Reactions, Disease Progression, Europe, Humans, Immunity, Active, Incidence, leprosy, Models, Statistical, Reproducibility of Results, Time Factors, Tuberculosis},
  author = {Lietman T and Porco T and Blower S},
  title = {Leprosy and tuberculosis: the epidemiological consequences of cross-immunity.},
  abstract = {<p><b>OBJECTIVES: </b>This study tested the hypothesis, first proposed by Chaussinand, that individual-level immunity acquired from exposure to tuberculosis may have contributed to the disappearance of leprosy from western Europe.</p><p><b>METHODS: </b>The epidemiological consequences of cross-immunity were assessed by the formulation of a mathematical model of the transmission dynamics of tuberculosis and leprosy.</p><p><b>RESULTS: </b>The conditions under which Mycobacterium tuberculosis could have eradicated Mycobacterium leprae were derived in terms of the basic reproductive rates of the two infections and the degree of cross-immunity.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS: </b>If the degree of cross-immunity between two diseases within an individual is known, then the epidemiological consequences of this cross-immunity can be assessed with transmission modeling. The results of this analysis, in combination with previous estimates of the basic reproductive rate of tuberculosis and degree of cross-immunity, imply that tuberculosis could have contributed to the decline of leprosy if the basic reproductive rate of leprosy was low.</p>},
  year = {1997},
  journal = {American journal of public health},
  volume = {87},
  pages = {1923-7},
  month = {1997 Dec},
  issn = {0090-0036},
  url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1381230/pdf/amjph00511-0021.pdf},
  doi = {10.2105/ajph.87.12.1923},
  language = {eng},
}