{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,13]],"date-time":"2025-05-13T21:56:21Z","timestamp":1747173381183,"version":"3.40.5"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,28]],"date-time":"2020-12-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1609113600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Epidemiol. Infect."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n\t  <jats:p>Using monthly data from the Ebola-outbreak 2013\u20132016 in West Africa, we compared two calibrations for data fitting, least-squares (<jats:italic>SSE<\/jats:italic>) and weighted least-squares (<jats:italic>SWSE<\/jats:italic>) with weights reciprocal to the number of new infections. To compare (in hindsight) forecasts for the final disease size (the actual value was observed at month 28 of the outbreak) we fitted Bertalanffy\u2013P\u00fctter growth models to truncated initial data (first 11, 12, \u2026, 28 months). The growth curves identified the epidemic peak at month 10 and the relative errors of the forecasts (asymptotic limits) were below 10%, if 16 or more month were used; for <jats:italic>SWSE<\/jats:italic> the relative errors were smaller than for <jats:italic>SSE<\/jats:italic>. However, the calibrations differed insofar as for <jats:italic>SWSE<\/jats:italic> there were good fitting models that forecasted reasonable upper and lower bounds, while <jats:italic>SSE<\/jats:italic> was biased, as the forecasts of good fitting models systematically underestimated the final disease size. Furthermore, for <jats:italic>SSE<\/jats:italic> the normal distribution hypothesis of the fit residuals was refuted, while the similar hypothesis for <jats:italic>SWSE<\/jats:italic> was not refuted. We therefore recommend considering <jats:italic>SWSE<\/jats:italic> for epidemic forecasts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/s0950268820003039","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,28]],"date-time":"2020-12-28T07:10:27Z","timestamp":1609139427000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Forecasting the final disease size: comparing calibrations of Bertalanffy\u2013P\u00fctter models"],"prefix":"10.1017","volume":"149","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6487-5752","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Norbert","family":"Brunner","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0217-7550","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Manfred","family":"K\u00fchleitner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/jmaa.1993.1361"},{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.epidem.2016.11.002"},{"volume-title":"Fitting Models to Biological Data Using Linear and Nonlinear Regression: A Practical Guide to Curve Fitting","year":"2003","author":"Motulsky","key":"S0950268820003039_ref36"},{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jtbi.2013.10.017"},{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01755094"},{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.epidem.2017.02.009"},{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.idm.2017.05.004"},{"key":"S0950268820003039_ref9","article-title":"Is West Africa approaching a catastrophic phase or is the 2014 Ebola epidemic slowing down? 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Published by Cambridge University Press","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}],"article-number":"e6"}}