The effectiveness of public health interventions during a disease outbreak depends on rapid, accurate characterization of the initial outbreak and spread of the pathogen. Computer-based simulation using mathematical models provides a means to characterize both and enables practitioners to test intervention strategies. While compartmental differential equation models can be used to represent epidemics, they are unsuitable for early time simulations (first few days) when a small number of people are infected (and even fewer symptomatic), nor are they capable of representing spatial disease spread. Numerous models for disease propagation have been explored, including national scale network models for influenza and social network-based and probabilistic models for smallpox. To be useful in a public health context, a model for disease propagation should be efficient (e.g., simulating several weeks of real time in an hour) and flexible enough to simultaneously represent multiple diseases and attack scenarios.
Objective
This paper describes biologically-based mathematical models and efficient methods for early epoch simulation of disease outbreaks and bioterror attacks.