Infectious disease in networks and its simulations as tool to evaluate control measures during an epidemic outbreak
The law of mass action, which is an assumption present in most tractable epidemic models, is equivalent to consider that the number of contacts (that can result in infection) of any individual in a population is close to the average number. However, there exist important types of infectious contact (such as sexual contacts) that do not have this characteristic, heavily affecting the outbreak evolution. In this talk some of the principal characteristics of outbreaks in networks are addressed. First, some of the most important results obtained by Andersson (1998) and Newman (2002) are presented, together with a generalization of their model.
Next, we describe the program developed with the Region of Peel and Infonaut Inc (SIMID) in order to picture general scenarios for outbreaks. The main goal of this program is to facilitate health officers and decision makers the evaluation of diverse control measures, such as prophylactic vaccination, school closures and isolation. The program was implemented for the Region of Peel, using its social and demographic characteristics to model an individual contact network with emphasis on school contacts. In this presentation we talk about the program's theoretical bases, its algorithms, its main characteristics and its possible extensions.
