We published 3 papers this summer, approaching very different epidemic contexts (bovine brucellosis, varicella, influenza) with different methods.

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With the first paper we were able to explain the persistence of bovine brucellosis in southern Italy, that is a matter of great concern for animal health and welfare, trade and commerce and economic reasons. Based on a network approach coupled with detailed cattle trade movements and outbreak data, we found that more efficient biosecurity measures in the north and limited compliance to trade regulations for epidemic control in the south are key factors explaining the diverse success of Italian regions in eradicating brucellosis.


We were also able to identify for the first time illegal trade behavior from data!

The study was a collaboration with the IZS - Italian Agency for Animal Health (Teramo, Italy). 








Network-based assessment of the vulnerability of Italian regions to bovine brucellosis
A Darbon, E Valdano, C Poletto, A Giovannini, L Savini, L Candeloro, V Colizza
Preventive Veterinary Medicine 158, 25 (2018)



The second paper highlighted the role of changes in children contacts in daycare over time, also due to higher attendance, in the dynamics of varicella transmission in France. We used an agent-based model with data-driven contacts obtained from a large scale survey conducted in France. This study was a collaboration with the lab of Stefano Merler at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Trento, Italy). 

In the third paper we analyzed 30 influenza seasons in France to characterize their season-by-season variability both in the start of the epidemic and in the time of the epidemic peak. We introduced a clustering approach to assess the deviations from typical spreading patterns and identified groups of seasons whose behavior largely deviates from the features of a typical season well-known in the literature. This study was a collaboration with Reseau Sentinelles, the disease surveillance team in France.

​​Shifting patterns of seasonal influenza epidemics
P Coletti, C Poletto, C Turbelin, T Blanchon, V Colizza
Scientific Reports 8, 12786 (2018)
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A couple of months have passed since NetSci 2018... and much more time since our last post - the organization of NetSci strongly impacted the lab's agenda!

NetSci has been an amazing experience and a terrific event!
​791 participants... new record - very proud. 

Have a look at some photos:

​Influenzanet was cited in a recent Nature Outlook issue on the future of medicine, addressing specifically "Infection forecasts powered by big data". Have a look!

​Don't miss the opportunity to learn from leading researchers and apply to the following upcoming Schools.

EPIcx-lab researchers Chiara Poletto and Vittoria Colizza will give lectures at the following venues. Learn about epidemics on networks, metapopulation models, epidemic thresholds, multistrain circulation, control strategies and more!







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EPIcx is involved in the organisation of two satellites at NetSci2018 on different aspects of Network Epidemiology.

At the end of 2017 we published this study on health-care seeking behavior in the general population in France from the Grippenet.fr cohort. Online publication took a while... but the paper is finally out!

Nice to kick start the new year with two acceptance notifications in the inbox! 
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Our study about the impact of school holidays on the spread of seasonal flu has been accepted on BMC Infectious Diseases and it is already on line

The impact of regular school closure on seasonal influenza epidemics: a data-driven spatial transmission model for Belgium 
G De Luca, K Van Kerckhove, P Coletti, C Poletto, N Bossuyt, N Hens, V Colizza
BMC Infectious Diseases 18:29 (2018)

On a more theoretical side, we worked on the mathematical calculation of the epidemic threshold in continuous-time temporal networks introducing a new framework that bridge the gap between continuous and discrete-time description of spreading and network dynamics. The paper got accepted on Physics Review Letters 

Epidemic threshold in continuous-time evolving networks 
E Valdano, M Re Fiorentin, C Poletto, and V Colizza
Physics Review Letters  still in press (2018)

 by Vittoria Colizza

2017 marks an exciting Academic Year, with important accomplishments. Last July I obtained my first French academic degree, the Habilitation a Diriger la Recherche, or HDR, an accreditation needed to supervise research. Though I supervised already students in France (and abroad before), the French system requires researchers to pass this exam, not quite a formality at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie. The candidate is expected to write a bulky dossier of previous research and supervision activities, as well as future projects. Here’s mine:
 
Vittoria Colizza’s HDR dossier

After receiving external reviews and an overall internal evaluation, the HDR Committee allows the candidate to defend her HDR, similarly to a PhD defense. And the defense for me has been a great highlight of my 2017. I’m very grateful to all jury members (Prof. Jean-Francois Guegan at IRD; Dr. Jean-Claude Desenclos, Scientific Director of the French Public Health Agency, Prof. Alain-Jacques Valleron, member of the French Academy of Sciences; Dr. Clemence Magnien at UPMC; Prof. Niel Hens at Hasselt University; Prof. Jean-Pierre Nadal at ENS) for creating the steps for such a stimulating discussion on science, medicine, modeling, interdisciplinary approaches and public health, and future perspectives. After more than 3 hours of discussion, and the jury deliberating I got the degree (yay!!!), pizza 🇮🇹 and champagne 🇫🇷 were well deserved.
 

The HDR was also a first step to a major career evolution. Starting December 1st, I’ve been promoted Director of Research at Inserm – another yay!!! This too was a lengthy and tough process as it required to pass the concours, a national public multi-stage exam open to everybody, similar to the one I passed in 2010 to enter Inserm at the Senior Researcher level. The confirmation of my ranking within the 5 seats available for the Public Health Commission arrived a couple of weeks ago – already time to celebrate with panettone 🇮🇹 and champagne 🇫🇷, followed by an oysters brunch on a fantastic Saturday morning with the lab. 
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EPIcx lab has currently 2 open positions for Master internships in France (with associated sponsorship if you're a student at a French University) that can possibly be followed by a PhD program. 

Epidemics on temporal networks with application to livestock diseases.

Analysis visualization and modeling of influenza global circulation.
Multi-scale modeling of pathogen emergence dynamics.

We have posted 3 new preprints on biorxiv:

Farm productive realities and the dynamics of bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) transmission
B Iotti, E Valdano, L Savini, L Candeloro, A Giovannini, S Rosati, V Colizza, M Giacobini

The paper multiscale metapopulation model for the diffusion of BVD virus that takes into account both the generation of new PIs dynamics within a herd, and the diffusion of PIs through the Italian national bovine trade network. The main goal of this work is to highlight the role that farms belonging to different productive compartments play in this pathogen diffusion dynamics. The work is a collaboration with the Vet Sciences Dept of the University of Turin and the Italian Animal Health Agency. 


The impact of regular school closure on seasonal influenza epidemics: a data-driven spatial transmission model for Belgium
G De Luca, K Van Kerckhove, P Coletti, C Poletto, N Bossuyt, N Hens, V Colizza

The closure of school is repeatedly discussed in the framework of mitigating strategies for influenza and a large literature is available on the topic. No clear conclusions can however be drawn from contrasting available empirical or modeling evidence, making this issue highly debated and still unclear. In our study we propose a data-driven spatially explicit modeling approach to identify the behavioral mechanisms responsible for influenza mitigation during school holidays and explore their impact in different experimental scenarios. The work is a collaboration with Prof. Niel Hens’s group at Hasselt University.


Social fluidity mobilizes contagion in human and animal populations
E Colman, V Colizza, EM Hanks, AP Modlmeier, DP Hughes, S Bansal

Humans and other group-living animals tend to distribute their social effort heterogeneously; individuals predominantly interact with their closest companions while maintaining weaker social bonds with less familiar group members. We introduce a mathematical model that incorporates this heterogeneity through a single parameter, called social fluidity, that controls the level of social mixing in the population. The work marks the first collaboration with Prof. Shweta Bansal’s group at Georgetown University.