Bayesian Analysis for Inference of an Emerging Epidemic: Citrus Canker in Urban Landscapes

Neri, Franco M.; Cook, Alex R.; Gibson, Gavin J.; Gottwald, Tim R.; Gilligan, Christopher A.

The latent period for citrus canker is short, ,7-21 days [28] relative to the timescale for infection, and shorter than the interval (30 days) used for data censoring. Hence, latent infection is not represented explicitly in our model. Asymptomatic infection was also not included in the model. The period of asymptomatic infection has been estimated around 100 days [28] , which is not negligible compared with the timescale of infection. However, lags in the infection process due to the asymptomatic period were avoided in the analyses described here (see previous section): the dataset used for parameter estimation consists of censored infection times, estimated by pathologists at the time of detection by back calculating from symptom size and expression the likely day of infection with allowance for a 30-day error. See the section ''Parameter estimation'' below for a test of our assumptions about latent and asymptomatic periods.