Calculating Human to Human Avian Influenza R₀ via Likelihood and Jacobian Approach

The transmission of avian influenza between humans is extremely rare, and it mostly affects individuals who are in contact with infected poultry. Although this scenario is uncommon, there have been multiple outbreaks that occur in small infection clusters in Asia with relatively low transmissibility, and thus are too weak to cause an epidemic. Still, subcritical transmission from stuttering chain data is vital for determining whether avian influenza is close to the threshold of R₀>1. In this talk, we will explore two methods of calculating R₀ using a likelihood approach and the standard Jacobian method.