  A novel point process model continuous in space-time is proposed for
quantifying the transmission dynamics of the two most common meningococcal
antigenic sequence types observed in Germany 2002-2008. Modelling is based on
the conditional intensity function (CIF) which is described by a superposition
of additive and multiplicative components. As an epidemiological interesting
finding, spread behaviour was shown to depend on type in addition to age: basic
reproduction numbers were 0.25 (95% CI 0.19-0.34) and 0.11 (95% CI 0.07-0.17)
for types B:P1.7-2,4:F1-5 and C:P1.5,2:F3-3, respectively. Altogether, the
proposed methodology represents a comprehensive and universal regression
framework for the modelling, simulation and inference of self-exciting
spatio-temporal point processes based on the CIF. Usability of the modelling in
biometric practice is promoted by an implementation in the R package
surveillance.
