Transmissibility of tuberculosis among students and non-students: an occupational-specific mathematical modelling

Abstract Background Recently, despite the steady decline in the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic globally, school TB outbreaks have been frequently reported in China. This study aimed to quantify the transmissibility of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) among students and non-students using a mathematical model to determine characteristics of TB transmission. Methods We constructed a dataset of reported TB cases from four regions (Jilin Province, Xiamen City, Chuxiong Prefecture, and Wuhan City) in China from 2005 to 2019. We classified the population and the reported cases under student and non-student groups, and developed two mathematical models [nonseasonal model (Model A) and seasonal model (Model B)] based on the natural history and transmission features of TB. The effective reproduction number (R eff ) of TB between groups were calculated using the collected data. Results During the study period, data on 456,423 TB cases were collected from four regions: students accounted for 6.1% of cases. The goodness-of-fit analysis showed that Model A had a better fitting effect (P