A generalized dose-response relationship for adenovirus infection and illness by exposure pathway.

Adenoviruses are found everywhere in the environment, and cause various health problems including symptoms of enteric illness, and respiratory illness. Despite their significance to public health, few studies have addressed the health risks associated with exposure to adenovirus. Human challenge studies have been published for a few adenoviruses, which involved exposure through oral ingestion, inhalation, intranasal and intraocular droplet inoculation. Nothwithstanding the different symptoms resulting from such exposures, infection can be defined as colonization of a corresponding mucosa. A two-level dose-response model was developed to describe the distributions of infectivity and pathogenicity in various challenge studies of adenovirus, incorporating differences in inoculation route as shift in average infectivity and pathogenicity. This dose-response model can be used to make predictions for the infectivity of adenovirus, specific to any of the four studied inoculation methods. The generalized adenovirus dose-response relationship for infection and acute illness takes into account variation in infectivity and/or pathogenicity across adenovirus types, as well as uncertainty due to limited data.