On epidemic modeling in real time: An application to the 2009 Novel A (H1N1) influenza outbreak in Canada.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Management of emerging infectious diseases such as the 2009 influenza pandemic A (H1N1) poses great challenges for real-time mathematical modeling of disease transmission due to limited information on disease natural history and epidemiology, stochastic variation in the course of epidemics, and changing case definitions and surveillance practices.

Findings

The Richards model and its variants are used to fit the cumulative epidemic curve for laboratory-confirmed pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) infections in Canada, made available by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The model is used to obtain estimates for turning points in the initial outbreak, the basic reproductive number (R0), and for expected final outbreak size in the absence of interventions. Confirmed case

SUBMITTER: Hsieh YH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2989981 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature