Animal Ownership and Touching Enrich the Context of Social Contacts Relevant to the Spread of Human Infectious Diseases

• Yimer Wasihun Kifle,

  Affiliations Center for Health Economics Research & Modeling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

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• Nele Goeyvaerts,

  Affiliations Center for Health Economics Research & Modeling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

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• Kim Van Kerckhove,

  Affiliation Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

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• Lander Willem,

  Affiliations Center for Health Economics Research & Modeling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

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• Christel Faes,

  Affiliation Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

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• Herwig Leirs,

  Affiliation Evolutionary Ecology Group, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

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• Niel Hens,

  Affiliations Center for Health Economics Research & Modeling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

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• Philippe Beutels

  * E-mail: philippe.beutels@uantwerpen.be

  Affiliations Center for Health Economics Research & Modeling of Infectious Diseases (CHERMID), Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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