The incidence of typhoid fever, an invasive bacterial infection caused by Salmonella enterica serovars Typhi and Paratyphi, is largely unknown in regions without blood culture surveillance. New and effective typhoid conjugate vaccines are available, but many at-risk low-income and middle-income populations lack the data on typhoid incidence needed to inform and evaluate vaccine introduction.
To address this challenge, University of California, Davis; the Sabin Vaccine Institute; and Massachusetts General Hospital present a hands-on, one-day workshop focusing on the innovative R package “serocalculator”, a tool designed to generate robust typhoid incidence estimates from cross-sectional serosurveys. The workshop will be held December 8, 2023, in Kigali, Rwanda, on the sidelines of the International Conference on Typhoid and other Invasive Salmonelloses.
The “serocalculator” package implements newly developed statistical methods for estimating seroincidence using antibody decay-rate models derived from confirmed cases. The software generates incidence estimates by correlating peak antibody response and decay rate from blood-culture confirmed patients, considering factors such as heterogeneity in antibody responses, age-dependence, assay probe non-specific binding (noise), and measurement imprecision due to the dilution series.
This workshop is best suited for data analysts with a comfortable familiarity with R programming. Space is limited and participants will be selected based on a number of factors, including skill with R programming and ability to analyze existing datasets. Participants who lack a background in R are encouraged to reach out to the course organizers for suggestions on preparatory curriculum.
Our workshop curriculum covers:
• An introduction to serologic markers for typhoid diagnostics and surveillance
• A session on ensuring data reliability and reproducibility
• An overview of seroepidemiology and how to characterize infection burden in populations
• A detailed tour of the SeroCalculator package
To register for this workshop please click here. Spots are limited and participants will be selected based on factors including skill with R programming and ability to analyze existing datasets. We anticipate we will be able to let interested people know if they will be able to attend by mid-October.
