Open AccessImportance of Epidemiology and R0 in Wildlife Rehabilitation
Author(s) -
Elizabeth F. Daut
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
wildlife rehabilitation bulletin
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2769-6960
pISSN - 1535-2242
DOI - 10.53607/wrb.v30.64
Subject(s) - wildlife , epidemiology , outbreak , population , wildlife disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , disease , geography , environmental health , demography , biology , medicine , ecology , virology , pathology , sociology
Wildlife rehabilitators are at the intersection between individual and population–level wildlife health. Epidemiology is the study of diseases at population levels and mounting evidence suggests that disease outbreaks can impact wildlife populations significantly. The basic reproduction number (R0) is used as a threshold value to predict whether a disease will result in an outbreak or die out. It is defined as the expected number of secondary cases caused by one infectious individual (the index or primary case) during this individual’s entire infectious period in a fully susceptible population. Rehabilitators should be familiar with the concept of R0 and the important effect on and contribution to wildlife disease epidemiology that they can have.