A resampling-based test to detect person-to-person transmission of infectious disease

Understand

Early detection of person-to-person transmission of emerging infectious diseases such as avian influenza is crucial for containing pandemics.

• We developed a simple permutation test and its refined version for this purpose.
• A simulation study shows that the refined permutation test is as powerful as or outcompetes the conventional test built on asymptotic theory, especially when the sample size is small.
• In addition, our resampling methods can be applied to a broad range of problems where an asymptotic test is not available or fails.