Background: Due to more mosquito habitats and the lack of basic mosquito control facilities, construction sites are more likely to have secondary cases after case importation, which may increase the number of cases in the neighborhood community and the chance of community transmission. This study aims to investigate how to effectively reduce the dengue transmission in construction sites and the neighboring communities.
Methods: Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious/Asymptomatic-Recovered (SEIAR) model of human and SEI model of mosquitoes were developed to estimate the transmission of dengue virus between human and mosquitoes within the construction site and within a neighboring community, as well between them. With the calibrated model, we further estimated the effectiveness of different intervention scenarios targeting at reducing the transmissibility at different locations (i.e. construction sites and community) with the total attack rate (TAR) and the duration of the outbreak (DO).
Results: A total of 102 construction site-related and 131 community-related cases of dengue were reported in our study area. Without intervention, the cases related to the construction site and the community rose to 156 (TAR: 31.25%) and 10796 (TAR: 21.59%). When cutting off the transmission route from mosquitoes to human in the community, the community cases decreased to a minimum of 33 compared with other simulated scenarios (TAR: 0.068%, DO: 60 days). If the transmission route from infectious mosquitoes in the community, and from the construction site to susceptible people on the site, was cut off at the same time, the cases in the construction site dropped to a minimum of 74 (TAR: 14.88%, DO: 66 days).
Conclusions: To control the outbreak effectively for both the construction site and the community, interventions needed to be taken within the community and from the community to the construction site. If interventions were only taken within the construction site, this could not reduce the number of cases on the construction site. If interventions were taken within the construction site or between the construction site and the community, this could not lead to a reduction in the number of cases in the community.