About the Authors

James Wambua

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

james.wambua@uhasselt.be

Affiliation Data Science Institute, I-BioStat, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium

John C. Lang

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Merck Canada Inc., Kirkland, Quebec, Canada

Benson Ogunjimi

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Centre for Health Economics Research and Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, Antwerp Unit for Data Analysis and Computation in Immunology and Sequencing (AUDACIS), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, Department of Paediatrics, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium

Niel Hens

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Data Science Institute, I-BioStat, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium, Centre for Health Economics Research and Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Philippe Beutels

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Centre for Health Economics Research and Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Competing Interests

JCL is a full-time employee of Merck Canada Inc., Kirkland, Quebec, Canada. JCL may hold stock or stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. BO, NH, and PB are faculty members whose institution (University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium) was paid by MSD. PB reports research grants for unrelated work from Pfizer and AstraZeneca. JW is a voluntary research fellow and a former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium and has no other interests to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.