Outbreaks of infections such as influenza can generate a substantial disease burden. However, understanding the dynamics of these infections remains challenging, because individuals can be infected by multiple strains over the course of their lifetime, and infection with one strain may generate a cross-reactive immune response to related viruses.
I will talk about recent work we’ve done using mathematical models to estimate unobserved epidemiological and immunological dynamics from contemporary serological data. As well as looking at how these methods can provide insights into influenza outbreaks, I’ll discuss broader applications to dengue and related flaviviruses.