Interventions for avian influenza A (H5N1) risk management in live bird market networks

Interventions for avian influenza A (H5N1) risk  
management in live bird market networks  
Guillaume Fourniéa,1, Javier Guitiana, Stéphanie Desvauxb, Vu Chi Cuongc, Do Huu Dungd, Dirk Udo Pfeiffera,  
Punam Mangtanie, and Azra C. Ghanif  
aVeterinary Epidemiology, Economics and Public Health Group, Department of Production and Population Health, Royal Veterinary College, University of  
London, Hatfield AL9 7TA, United Kingdom; bAnimal and Integrated Risks Management (AGIRs) Research Unit, Cirad, Campus International de Baillarguet,  
34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France; cNational Institute of Animal Science, Thuy Phuong, Tu Liem, Hanoi, Vietnam; dDepartment of Animal Health, Ministry of  
Agriculture and Rural Development, Phuong Mai, Dong Da, Hanoi, Vietnam; eDepartment of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene  
and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom; and fMedical Research Council Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Department of  
Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom  
Edited by Robert M. May, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, and approved April 3, 2013 (received for review November 29, 2012)  
Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H5N1 is endemic  
in Asia, with live bird trade as a major disease transmission pathway.  
A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in northern Vietnam to  
investigate the structure of the live bird market (LBM) contact  
network and the implications for virus spread. Based on the move-  
ments of traders between LBMs, weighted and directed networks  
were constructed and used for social network analysis and  
individual-based modeling. Most LBMs were connected to one  
another, suggesting that the LBM network may support large-  
scale disease spread. Because of cross-border trade, it also may  
promote transboundary virus circulation. However, opportunities  
for disease control do exist. The implementation of thorough,  
daily disinfection of the market environment as well as of traders’  
vehicles and equipment in only a small number of hubs can dis-  
connect the network dramatically, preventing disease spread.  
These targeted interventions would be an effective alternative  
to the current policy of a complete ban of LBMs in some areas.  
Some LBMs that have been banned still are very active, and they  
likely have a substantial impact on disease dynamics, exhibiting  
the highest levels of susceptibility and infectiousness. The number  
of trader visits to markets, information that can be collected  
quickly and easily, may be used to identify LBMs suitable for  
implementing interventions. This would not require prior knowl-  
edge of the force of infection, for which laboratory-confirmed  
surveillance would be necessary. These findings are of particular  
relevance for policy development in resource-scarce settings.  
mix and potentially transfer the virus either by trading infected  
poultry or by sharing contaminated equipment. In the absence of  
effective disinfection, traders may then act as a major source of  
exposure to infection for farms (13–18). Once contaminated,  
some LBMs may even act as viral reservoirs, depending on the  
poultry management practices of their traders (19, 20). Such  
markets provide a continuous source of infection for the poultry  
sector. The network of LBM contacts resulting from trader  
movements therefore may play a major role in the spread (21, 22)  
and maintenance of HPAIV H5N1 within poultry production  
systems similar to the way in which networks of contacts between  
hosts or host populations have been shown to determine the  
emergence and endemic levels of other diseases (23, 24).  
The impact of the market network topology on the course of  
livestock disease epidemics was studied previously in production  
systems in developed countries where detailed data relating to  
the movements of livestock, farmers, and other stakeholders are  
readily available (25, 26). Such studies are less common in de-  
veloping countries, as detailed movement data generally are not  
available. A deeper understanding of the topology of networks  
of contacts between livestock populations would allow more ap-  
propriate tailoring of surveillance programs and control strate-  
gies. This is relevant particularly to the allocation of the limited  
resources available to control livestock diseases in developing  
countries. It also is a global public health concern, given that the  
extended circulation of some pathogen strains through trade  
networks may promote the emergence of new zoonotic variants  
(2). The design of strategies for the eradication of livestock  
diseases, such as foot-and-mouth disease, also would benefit  
from a network-based approach.  
questionnaire survey transmission model livestock disease  
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zoonotic disease  
ighly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H5N1 (HPAIV  
HH5N1) is endemic in many parts of Asia and in Egypt (1).  
The wide genetic diversity and the potential for recombination  
with human influenza strains continue to pose a major public  
health concern (2, 3). Although combinations of mass vaccina-  
tion, culling, and movement restrictions have controlled avian  
influenza epidemics effectively in developed countries, the high  
financial outlay makes such strategies inappropriate in resource-  
poor settings where most poultry is raised by small-holder own-  
ers. Moreover, if inappropriately implemented, they might have  
a major, albeit unintended, impact on disease dynamics by cre-  
ating conditions that favor silent spread of the virus within the  
poultry sector (4–7). Therefore, there is a real need to design  
appropriately targeted interventions for the prevention and  
control of HPAI H5N1, which are both realistic and sustainable  
in resource-poor settings. To achieve this, a better understanding  
of the drivers of disease dynamics in these settings is needed.  
Live bird trade, common in HPAI H5N1-endemic areas, is  
known to be a major pathway for disease spread. Along trade  
routes, live bird markets (LBMs) act as hubs for traders, yet  
LBMs frequently are found to be contaminated in disease-  
epidemic and -endemic areas (8–12). Here, poultry traders can  
Previous studies in southeast Asia explored the flow of poultry  
through the Cambodian market chain (27), including the links  
between some LBMs and the supplying flocks in Vietnam (16)  
and China (28). However, the topology of the LBM contact  
network formed by the movements of poultry traders has not  
been assessed. Here we describe empirically, using social net-  
work analysis, the topology of such a network of contacts be-  
tween LBMs in northern Vietnam based on structured interviews  
with live poultry traders. A stochastic network transmission  
model, based on the empirical network, then is used to assess the  
Author contributions: G.F., J.G., S.D., V.C.C., D.H.D., D.U.P., P.M., and A.C.G. designed  
research; G.F., S.D., V.C.C., and D.H.D. performed research; G.F., J.G., D.U.P., P.M., and  
A.C.G. analyzed data; and G.F., J.G., S.D., V.C.C., D.H.D., D.U.P., P.M., and A.C.G. wrote  
the paper.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.  
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.  
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.  
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]k.  
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.  
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impact of control measures targeted at central nodes, which were  
identified using network structural measures.  
The two provincial-level networks that incorporated only  
LBMs and traders interviewed within each province also were  
characterized by large GSCs. All 49 of the LBMs in the Bac  
Giang network were included in the GSC. Of the 81 LBMs  
comprising the Hanoi network, 7 (9%) were isolated and 62  
(77%) belonged to the GSC. The Bac Giang network was highly  
clustered, with a clustering coefficient (0.33) consistently higher  
than that obtained from simulated random networks with the  
same number of links and similar link weights (median, 0.08;  
range, 0.04–0.14). In contrast, the Hanoi network showed a lower  
level of clustering (0.02) than corresponding random networks  
(median, 0.03; range, 0.002–0.09) in 84% of simulations.  
To identify potential network hubs, principal component anal-  
ysis and hierarchical cluster analysis were used in combination to  
partition LBMs based on three centrality measures—degree, be-  
tweenness, and closeness—with the resulting clusters used to de-  
fine LBMs as peripheral nodes, nodes with medium connectivity,  
and hubs (Materials and Methods and SI Text). Here “degree”  
refers to the number of visits to a given LBM by traders operating  
in several LBMs. Most LBMs in the networks of both Hanoi  
(61; 82%, excluding isolated LBMs) and Bac Giang (33; 67%)  
were peripheral (Fig. 1), whereas a few hubs—the largest whole-  
sale LBM in Hanoi and three Bac Giang LBMs—accounted for  
one-third of the total number of trader journeys within their  
respective network.  
Results  
Characterizing LBM Contact Networks. As most disease events are  
not detected, two study areas were selected based on demographic  
features—the province with the highest human population density  
in northern Vietnam, Hanoi (29), and a rural province with a large  
poultry population, Bac Giang (30) (Fig. 1A). Live poultry traders  
were recruited in 30 LBMs (n = 561) as well as in a nonmarket site  
(n = 6) (Materials and Methods). Of the 567 traders interviewed,  
200 reported operating in at least two LBMs (100 of 416 traders in  
Hanoi and 100 of 151 traders in Bac Giang).  
Directed and weighted networks were built with LBMs as the  
nodes and trader movements as potential pathways for disease  
transmission among LBMs. Weightings were determined by the  
number of trader visits connecting the markets. When consid-  
ering all traders and markets, the network of contacts was  
composed of 162 LBMs, 18% of which were located outside the  
study zone, in 10 other Vietnamese provinces (Fig. 1A). A total  
of 140 LBMs (86%) were encompassed in a giant strong com-  
ponent (GSC). The GSC is the largest subset in which any node  
can reach any other by following network links, and informs on  
the maximum epidemic size (31). Additionally, imports of live  
poultry from China into the Vietnamese LBM network were  
reported. This suggests that the LBM network can support large-  
scale, and even transboundary, disease spread, epidemiologically  
connecting regions that otherwise may have remained isolated.  
Both networks were resilient to random node removal, but  
targeted removal of nodes with high centrality measures drasti-  
cally reduced the GSC. In Hanoi, removing the single hub re-  
duced the GSC by at least 73%, whereas the removal of one to  
Fig. 1. Northern Vietnamese network, province-level networks, and centrality measures. (A) Location of provinces included in the northern Vietnamese  
network: Hanoi (dark gray), Bac Giang (medium gray), and other provinces included in the network but not studied in the survey (light gray). Networks and  
distributions of centrality measures are shown for Hanoi (n = 81) (B–D) and Bac Giang (n = 49) (E–G). Peripheral nodes are colored in blue, nodes with medium  
connectivity in yellow, and hubs in red. ○, nonsurveyed markets. Depending on their seller composition (20), markets included in the survey had the potential  
to sustain the virus circulation (▲) or not (●).  
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three other nodes had only a limited added impact. To reduce  
GSC in Bac Giang by at least 50%, three to four nodes would  
need to be removed.  
network that were contaminated if the infection was seeded in  
a given market.  
The strength of the positive linear correlation between sus-  
ceptibility and infectiousness increased with longer virus survival  
periods, TV (Fig. 2). Although the ranking of most LBMs according  
to their susceptibility or infectiousness varied with parameter  
values, LBMs with the highest susceptibility or infectiousness  
remained unchanged. For each simulation set, the four markets  
with the highest susceptibility always belonged to a group of five  
markets located in the provincial capital city, including one hub  
and four nodes with medium connectivity. Likewise, the three hubs  
always combined high susceptibility and infectiousness. Therefore,  
the LBMs in which to implement surveillance, namely those with  
high susceptibility, could be chosen even without prior knowledge  
of the level of transmission. The same is true for LBMs considered  
suitable targets for disease control interventions, namely those with  
both high susceptibility and infectiousness.  
Traders who might promote conditions favorable for sustain-  
ing HPAIV H5N1 in LBMs (20) were predominant in 13 of the  
Hanoi LBMs included in the survey (solid triangle in Fig. 1). In  
contrast, traders operating in the Hanoi hub, and all traders  
operating in Bac Giang markets, kept their poultry in LBMs for  
only a short period, so virus maintenance was unlikely (20). Most  
of these 13 Hanoi markets with the potential to act as viral  
reservoirs were either isolated from or connected only weakly to  
the Hanoi network (five isolates, four peripheral nodes, and four  
nodes with medium connectivity). Some of these isolates were  
linked only to Bac Giang LBMs. Therefore, disconnecting LBM  
networks would result in the epidemiological isolation of these  
potential viral reservoirs, reducing their contribution to virus  
perpetuation in the poultry sector.  
These LBMs could be identified based on the number of visits  
by traders also operating in other LBMs. Indeed, a generalized  
additive model (GAM) (34, 35) with degree as predictor explained  
a high proportion of the null deviance for both susceptibility  
(0.53–0.69, depending on parameter values) and infectiousness  
(0.46–0.76). Similar results were obtained with closeness as  
a predictor (susceptibility, 0.70–0.73; infectiousness, 0.50–0.74),  
whereas GAMs with betweenness as a predictor explained less  
than 0.20 and 0.32 of the null deviance for susceptibility and  
infectiousness, respectively.  
To reduce disease spread through the Bac Giang network,  
daily disinfection could be applied simultaneously to the LBM  
environment and traders’ vehicles and equipment in the three  
hubs. This intervention reduced the median epidemic size, de-  
fined as the fraction of contaminated markets, by 0.80–0.89  
(depending on input parameters, and for parameter sets in which  
the fraction of contaminated markets reached 0.10 without dis-  
infection). However, as the impact on the upper bound of the  
epidemic size was limited, substantial epidemics still might occur.  
In an extreme case scenario where PT = PM = 1, daily disinfec-  
tion of the three hubs still reduced the median epidemic size  
by 0.68–0.72.  
However, as disinfection was sequentially applied less fre-  
quently and less thoroughly, the benefit of this intervention was  
lost (Fig. 3 for PM = 0.1 and PT = 0.1). This loss occurred more  
rapidly as PM and PT increased. When disinfection was applied  
every 2 d, the median epidemic size was reduced only by 0.30  
for high values of PM and PT, and by 0.79 for low values of PM  
and PT. Weekly disinfection reduced the median epidemic size  
by 0.04–0.25. In addition to its frequency, the impact of disin-  
fection on epidemic size also depended on the ability to dis-  
infect traders leaving the markets. Daily disinfection of 80% of  
traders leaving the three hubs reduced the median epidemic  
size by 0.50–0.77, whereas disinfection of 50% of these traders  
resulted in a reduction by 0.23–0.68. When only the traders  
Modeling HPAIV H5N1 Spread Within the LBM Network. In Bac  
Giang, several markets were open periodically and clustering of  
the network was high. Temporal changes in contact patterns and  
the trajectory of each trader within the network therefore would  
need to be captured to (i) assess whether centrality measures  
were good predictors of the importance of LBMs in disease  
transmission (32, 33) and (ii) explore ways in which the network  
could be fragmented. An individual-based model, in which each  
trader and each market was explicitly modeled, was developed to  
simulate the spread of HPAIV H5N1 through the Bac Giang  
LBM network. In contrast to Bac Giang, the Hanoi network was  
structured around a single hub. As a result of the low level of  
clustering, 45% of nodes encompassed in the GSC were linked  
solely to this hub. Analysis of the Hanoi network clearly high-  
lighted the central role of this hub in virus spread.  
Bac Giang traders kept poultry for only a short period in LBMs  
and thus were unlikely to permit virus perpetuation in these LBMs  
(20). However, a trader whose poultry was infectious or whose  
equipment was contaminated might potentially transfer viruses to  
the market environment. Other traders then might become con-  
taminated through contact with the contaminated environment  
(with a probability of PM) or through contacts with contaminated  
traders visiting the same market (with a probability of PT), in-  
cluding the handling and purchase of infectious poultry and the  
sharing of contaminated equipment, such as cages, weighing  
scales, and force-feeding tools. Contaminated traders would act as  
fomites, spreading virus through the market network for a period,  
TV, depending on the survival of the virus in the environment and  
the frequency and effectiveness of hygiene measures. Based on  
these parameters, simulations of an individual-based model were  
run, starting at the seeding of infection into an LBM in the Bac  
Giang network. Market susceptibility was defined as the pro-  
portion of simulations for which a given market was contaminated.  
Market infectiousness was the proportion of other markets in the leaving these hubs without birds could be disinfected daily  
Fig. 2. Association between susceptibility and infectiousness, shown for PT = 0.1, PM = 0.1, and TV = 1 d (A), 2 d (B), 3 d (C), and 4 d (D). LBMs are partitioned  
into peripheral nodes (blue), nodes with medium connectivity (yellow), and hubs (red). ○, nonsurveyed LBMs; ●, surveyed LBMs.  
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Fig. 3. Impact of disinfection on the final epidemic size. The relation between the epidemic size (fraction of contaminated markets) and (A) the disinfection  
frequency, and (B) the proportion of disinfected traders, is shown for PT = 0.1, PM = 0.1, and TV = 2 d (dotted line), 3 d (dashed line), and 4 d (solid line).  
Median and 95% range are presented. B, baseline, no disinfection; 2d, disinfection every 2 d.  
(37% of traders leaving the three hubs), the median epidemic  
size was reduced by 0.23–0.55.  
completely. Official closure has not resulted in the termination  
of live bird trade in some markets in northern Vietnam. Despite  
the ban, these markets were still very active and likely to have  
a substantial impact on disease dynamics. These included the  
most influential hub of the Bac Giang network, two other Bac  
Giang markets identified by the model to be suitable for targeted  
surveillance programs, and 22 markets located in Hanoi inner  
districts. Although the traders in these unauthorized markets  
were not interviewed, some unofficial LBMs in Hanoi inner  
districts were visited. They presented demographic features  
similar to those of the Hanoi markets identified as potential viral  
reservoirs (20), and also could act as potential viral reservoirs  
Although the model suggests that disinfection should be ap-  
plied frequently and thoroughly to have a substantial impact on  
disease spread, the actual frequency of application of hygiene  
measures in LBMs included in the survey was very low. Although  
cleaning of LBMs was reported to be undertaken daily by all  
interviewed market managers (n = 20), disinfectants actually  
were applied daily in only two markets, and only to the market  
environment. In 12 other markets, application frequency ranged  
from once per week to once every 2 mo. Additionally, the sale of  
live poultry was supposed to be banned in three markets located  
in the Bac Giang provincial capital city, namely the hub with the themselves. Such prescriptive policies actually might promote the  
highest centrality measures and two other markets among those proliferation of informal gathering points for traders outside the  
with the highest susceptibility. Live poultry trade also was sup- LBM system. Although official markets may allow rapid disease  
posed to be banned in Hanoi inner districts, where 22 markets that dissemination, they also are focal points where disease spread can  
shared traders with the largest Hanoi wholesale LBM were active. be monitored and controlled, in contrast to unauthorized and  
informal markets.  
Discussion  
Instead, disconnecting the market network should be achieved  
through the daily disinfection of LBMs and of the vehicles leaving  
them. Implementing this intervention in only a few hubs would be  
effective in fragmenting the entire network. As in previous studies  
of the spread of pathogens in human populations (35, 43), nodes  
that should be targeted could be identified easily based on their  
degree (i.e., the number of journeys made by traders to other  
markets). Degree is an egocentric measure that does not require  
the overall network to be captured. Variations in the probabilities  
of disease transmission had only a limited impact on the strength  
of the association among susceptibility, infectiousness, and degree,  
and on the identification of highly susceptible and infectious  
markets. Therefore, a prior knowledge of the level of transmission,  
which would require laboratory-based surveillance, would not be  
necessary to identify markets that should be targeted by hygiene  
measures and surveillance programs.  
Northern Vietnamese LBMs appeared to be well connected via  
the movements of their traders, with most LBMs grouped in  
a single GSC. The LBM network therefore might support large-  
scale, and even transboundary, disease spread, epidemiologically  
connecting geographically distant areas.  
Similar to other anthropogenic systems (36), each provincial-  
level network was characterized by the heterogeneity of contact  
patterns among LBMs. Most LBMs had a small number of  
neighbors, whereas there were few highly connected hubs. This  
topology may render these networks more vulnerable than ran-  
dom networks to disease invasion, even if the linkage density and  
the transmission rates are low (37–39). In previous studies, clus-  
tering was observed to increase the likelihood of disease extinction  
by reducing the local number of susceptible nodes (35). Such  
a scenario is unlikely to apply to the spread of HPAIV H5N1 in  
these LBM networks, however, because a contaminated LBM  
either remains contaminated or returns to a susceptible state.  
Although the LBMs that were more likely to become viral  
reservoirs were small markets that were connected only weakly to  
the network, some hubs were shown to be potential interfaces  
between these LBMs and the poultry sector. These hubs increased  
In the case of network hubs also acting as potential viral res-  
ervoirs, market disinfection programs should be complemented  
by measures aiming to break the virus amplification cycle (19). In  
our simulations, market disinfection had only a limited impact on  
the maximum epidemic size because of the high level of clus-  
tering in the province of Bac Giang. Although the three hubs  
the probability of LBM contamination, resulting in their becoming mediate most of the traders’ movements, substantial epidemics  
viral reservoirs. Measures aiming to fragment the networks could involving traders who do not visit these hubs still may occur.  
epidemiologically isolate these potential viral reservoirs and,  
The practical applications of mitigation strategies based on  
consequently, limit their impact on disease maintenance within the empirical networks need further investigation. To increase the  
poultry sector. Implementing hygiene measures, such as market uptake of such studies by policy makers, field trials might be  
rest days (40), in all potential viral reservoirs no longer would conducted to demonstrate the efficacy and assess the feasibility  
be necessary.  
of selected strategies (SI Text). Indeed, the behavioral changes  
required may make such interventions unfeasible. Disinfection  
of traders’ vehicles and equipment may be particularly chal-  
lenging. Additionally, some markets have particular physical  
characteristics that make environmental elimination difficult,  
In an effort to control the spread of HPAI H5N1, official  
banning of LBMs has been attempted in Egypt (41) and some  
Vietnamese urban areas (42). Although such measures may have  
reduced live bird trade somewhat, the activity has not ceased  
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Fournié et al.  
areas in terms of the amount of poultry sold. These LBMs were identified  
through interviews with traders. In addition, six traders were interviewed in  
Bac Giang province in a location outside the market system where poultry was  
traded. This site was identified by traders interviewed within an LBM located  
in its vicinity. Details on market and trader selection are provided in Fournié  
et al. (20). The sampling methodology may be described as a labeled star  
sampling approach (44): a set of markets, where traders were interviewed,  
allowed the identification of connections with other markets that did or did  
not belong to this set. The refusal rate was 8%, the principal reason being  
that some traders were too busy to participate. Informed oral consent was  
sought before interviewing. Ethical approval was granted by the Royal  
Veterinary College Ethics and Welfare Committee.  
such as nonsealed, earthen floors that would first require re-  
inforcement. To ensure a high level of compliance and to  
minimize the negative impact on trading activities, the design of  
such interventions must involve all stakeholders.  
Both the Hanoi and Bac Giang networks were only samples  
of wider networks, as only a fraction of the nodes and links were  
captured through the survey. Moreover, the markets included  
in the survey were not selected randomly. The results of the  
network analysis should be interpreted somewhat cautiously.  
Indeed, the sampling design may affect the structure of the  
observed networks and thus influence network parameter dis-  
tributions (44). Such bias may have been introduced into the  
Hanoi network, in which the hub was the mediator in most  
contacts among other markets. The high impact of its removal  
on the network connectivity resulted from the low clustering:  
most of its neighbors were connected only to this hub and not to  
one another. In most markets of this network, traders were not  
interviewed. Although it is possible that additional market  
contacts might have been identified through further interviews,  
22 of the network markets were visited and were observed to be  
small, with only one to six traders. Therefore, it is a realistic  
assumption that these markets were supplied by only one  
market. The centrality of the hub also is consistent with its role  
as a poultry supplier, being a wholesale market. Without doubt,  
it is the biggest market in northern Vietnam in terms of the  
number of traders and volume of sales. Contrary to all other  
investigated markets, in which all or almost all traders oper-  
ating in them were included in the survey, only a fraction of  
traders in this hub were interviewed. Therefore, it is possible  
that only a fraction of its contact markets were identified.  
In contrast, half the markets classified as nodes with medium  
connectivity in the Bac Giang network were not included in the  
survey, and the most “important” hub was not surveyed. This  
suggests that the observed Bac Giang network indeed reflects  
some characteristics of the true network. A higher proportion of  
traders were thought to have been interviewed in the Bac Giang  
network than in the Hanoi network, and most markets in which  
poultry was sold regularly likely were included in the network.  
Markets from the provincial capital city and from all surrounding  
districts were visited, and because of the much lower human  
population density, the total number of markets and traders in  
Bac Giang likely is less than in Hanoi. Trader movements were  
driven by the opening schedules of periodic markets, so most  
traders were highly mobile. Although not all periodic markets  
were visited, traders likely were interviewed in other markets  
with alternative opening days.  
Social Network Analysis. A timescale of 10 d was chosen for constructing  
networks because of the periodicity of market opening days: several markets  
were periodic and their sequence of opening days was fixed, repeating every  
10 d. Most traders reported visiting LBMs every opening day; however, 46  
traders (23%) visited markets less regularly. The number of days these traders  
operated in each market during a 10-d period and the specific days these  
markets were visited were unknown; therefore, they were defined sto-  
chastically from the number of days these traders visited markets in the week  
preceding the interview, and during a usual month. For each set of traders  
and markets, 1,000 stochastic networks were generated. Further details of  
the network construction and an assessment of its influence on network  
structure are provided in SI Text.  
For each network, the GSC was assessed. For the Bac Giang and Hanoi  
networks, the “weighted” clustering coefficient was calculated (46) and  
compared with the clustering coefficient of 1,000 random networks gen-  
erated with the same number of links and similar weight links. The LBM’s  
“importance” in the network was assessed by centrality measures: degree,  
betweenness, and closeness. “Unweighted” in- and out-degrees, defined  
as the number of markets sending or receiving traders from a given  
market, were highly correlated to the weighted degree, i.e., the number  
of visits to a given LBM by traders operating in several LBMs (Pearson’s  
correlation coefficient ρ >0.85). Therefore, only weighted degrees were  
considered. Betweenness characterizes the extent to which a node is lo-  
cated between other pairs of nodes, and closeness measures how close  
one node is from others. Similar to degree, betweenness and closeness  
accounted for link weights and directions, as detailed in SI Text. The me-  
dian estimate of each network parameter is presented. The 95% bounds  
of estimates from stochastic realizations closely follow the median.  
Based on their centrality measures, LBMs were classified using principal  
component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) (47). PCA may  
be used to reduce the dimensions of multivariate data and create a smaller  
number of uncorrelated synthetic factors (components) accounting for most  
data variability. HCA allows the grouping of LBMs into clusters according to  
their level of similarity in the created components. Similarity between two  
markets was assessed by the calculation of the Manhattan distance. The al-  
gorithm was agglomerative, and Ward’s criterion for linkage was adopted.  
To assess the impact of node removal on the size of the GSC while accounting  
for the weights of the links, “epidemiological networks” were simulated (31).  
The probability Γi of a link i with a weight Wi transmitting the virus was given  
Network analysis carried out in other livestock production sys-  
tems has confirmed livestock markets as the main hubs for live-  
stock movements (25, 26) and their contamination as a prerequisite  
for large epidemics (45). However, some farms also might act as  
bridges connecting markets. In Vietnam, a nonquantified pro-  
portion of live poultry transactions are mediated outside markets at  
informal locations. These informal markets will modify the struc-  
ture of the trader movement network.  
In conclusion, although the northern Vietnamese LBM network  
may create conditions for maintaining HPAIV H5N1 and its  
spread across large areas, opportunities for targeted surveillance  
and control do exist. These strategies might be implemented ef-  
fectively in a small number of hubs. Their identification might be  
based on egocentric measures without prior knowledge of the  
force of infection. These findings are particularly relevant for re-  
source-poor settings where LBM systems are well developed.  
Wi  
by Γi = 1 − ð1 − γÞ  
with γ the probability of a trader transmitting virus from  
,
one market to another. At each simulation, a Bernoulli process was applied to  
each link i with probability Γi, so the resulting simulated network was com-  
posed of “truly infectious links” if a given node was infected. A thousand  
epidemiological networks were constructed for each investigated values of the  
probability γ, γ ∈ ð0:1; 0:3; 0:6; 1Þ.  
Individual-Based Model. Poultry trade activities took place in most Bac Giang  
markets during a period of only a few hours per day, so it was assumed that  
traders visiting the same market on the same day were in contact with one  
another. In general, traders operating in the same markets visited each  
market in the same order, although there were a few exceptions. For  
instance, a trader might visit market A and then market B, whereas an-  
other would visit B and then A. These traders could have been in contact  
only in A or B, not both. The market in which they met was defined  
stochastically such that the number of contacts between traders was  
maximized (SI Text).  
At a given time t, a market j was characterized by its contamination  
status Mj,t (equal to 1 if the market environment was contaminated, 0 if  
not) and the number Nj,t of contaminated traders operating there. The  
market environment became contaminated once this market was visited  
by at least one contaminated trader. Markets and traders remained  
contaminated for the length of time before virus inactivation, TV, unless  
Materials and Methods  
Data Collection. Markets where live birds are sold are ubiquitous in Vietnam  
and heterogeneous in terms of the volume of poultry sold. Live bird trade is  
an irregular and minor activity in most markets. Therefore, sampling was  
conducted in a purposive manner, targeting the largest LBMs in the selected  
Fournié et al.  
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disinfection occurred. The probability Pi,t that a trader i visiting a market  
j at time t will become contaminated as the result of contact with the  
contaminated market environment or with contaminated traders was  
null deviance explained by the GAMs was used as a measure of the strength  
of the association between variables (35). All analyses were run using R  
2.12.0 (48) and the package “sna” (49). The package “tnet” (50) was used to  
calculate the clustering coefficient.  
Nj;t  
Mj;t  
defined as Pi;t = 1 − ð1 − PT Þ ð1 − PM  
Þ
, where PT is the probability of a  
contaminated trader transferring virus to a trader visiting the same market  
at the same time, and PM is the probability of a trader being contaminated  
via the market environment.  
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. The authors are grateful to the study participants and  
the interviewers. They also express their thanks to Rowland Kao, James Wood,  
Richard Kock, Angel Ortiz-Pelaez, and Thibaud Porphyre for their suggestions,  
which helped improve the analysis; Anna Dean for her constructive comments  
on the manuscript; Raphaëlle Métras and Kim Stevens for providing maps; Jeff  
Gilbert and Andrew Bisson for their support in the implementation of the field  
survey in Vietnam; and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive com-  
ments. G.F. thanks the Bloomsbury Consortium and the University of London  
Central Research Fund for their support. A.C.G. acknowledges support from  
the UK Medical Research Council.  
A simulation was started at a randomly chosen day, k, with 1 ≤ k ≤ 10 and  
was run for TV. Infection was seeded in market j, such that Mj,t = 1, and for  
the first visit Pi;t = 1 − ð1 − PT Þð1 − PMÞ. A thousand simulations were run for  
each combination of values of TV, with TV ∈ ð1d; 2d; 3d; 4dÞ, of PM with  
PM ∈ ð0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3Þ, and of PT with PT ∈ ð0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3Þ (SI Text). Univariable  
GAMs were fitted for each simulation set, with the response variable being  
either the susceptibility or the infectiousness and the predictor variable  
being the degrees, the betweenness, or the closeness. The proportion of the  
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