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Background  The parasite  Leishmania infantum  causes zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a potentially fatal vector-borne disease of canids and humans. Zoonotic VL poses a significant risk to public health, with regions of Latin America being particularly afflicted by the disease.  Leishmania infantum  parasites are transmitted between hosts during blood-feeding by infected female phlebotomine sand flies. With a principal reservoir host of  L. infantum  being domestic dogs, limiting prevalence in this reservoir may result in a reduced risk of infection for the human population. To this end, a primary focus of research efforts has been to understand disease transmission dynamics among dogs. One way this can be achieved is through the use of mathematical models.    Methods  We have developed a stochastic, spatial, individual-based mechanistic model of  L. infantum  transmission in domestic dogs. The model framework was applied to a rural Brazilian village setting with parameter values informed by fieldwork and laboratory data. To ensure household and sand fly populations were realistic, we statistically fitted distributions for these entities to existing survey data. To identify the model parameters of highest importance, we performed a stochastic parameter sensitivity analysis of the prevalence of infection among dogs to the model parameters.    Results  We computed parametric distributions for the number of humans and animals per household and a non-parametric temporal profile for sand fly abundance. The stochastic parameter sensitivity analysis determined prevalence of  L. infantum  infection in dogs to be most strongly affected by the sand fly associated parameters and the proportion of immigrant dogs already infected with  L. infantum  parasites.    Conclusions  Establishing the model parameters with the highest sensitivity of average  L. infantum  infection prevalence in dogs to their variation helps motivate future data collection efforts focusing on these elements. Moreover, the proposed mechanistic modelling framework provides a foundation that can be expanded to explore spatial patterns of zoonotic VL in humans and to assess spatially targeted interventions.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (10.1186/s13071-019-3430-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Spatio-temporal modelling of Leishmania infantum infection among domestic dogs: a simulation study and sensitivity analysis applied to rural Brazil