Background: Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) has circulated in China and caused yearly outbreak. To understand the transmission of the disease and to assess the spatial variation in cases reported, we examined age-specific transmission characteristics and reporting rates of HFMD for 31 provinces in mainland China. Methods: We first analyzed incidence spatial patterns and age-specific incidence patterns using dataset from 2008 to 2012. Transmission characteristics were estimated based on catalytic model. Reporting rates were estimated using a simple mass action model from "Time Series Susceptible Infectious Recovered" (TSIR) modeling.
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