Related papers: Embedded model discrepancy: A case study of Zika m…
In Costa Rica, the first known cases of Zika were reported in 2016. We looked at the 2016-2017 Zika outbreak and explored the transmission dynamics using weekly reported data. A nonlinear differential equation single-outbreak model with…
During an infectious disease outbreak, biases in the data and complexities of the underlying dynamics pose significant challenges in mathematically modelling the outbreak and designing policy. Motivated by the ongoing response to COVID-19,…
In this work we applied several concepts on the modeling of complex systems in an attempt to save mankind in the case of a zombie apocalypse. We developed a dynamical system in order to model a zombie outbreak in which we, regular humans,…
One difficulty for real-time tracking of epidemics is related to reporting delay. The reporting delay may be due to laboratory confirmation, logistic problems, infrastructure difficulties and so on. The ability to correct the available…
Our paper investigates distributions of exposed and infectious time periods in an epidemic model and how applying a disease control strategy affects the model's accuracy. While ordinary differential equations are widely used for their…
In disease mapping, the relative risk of a disease is commonly estimated across different areas within a region of interest. The number of cases in an area is often assumed to follow a Poisson distribution whose mean is decomposed as the…
The COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that has had the world in its grip from the beginning of 2020, has resulted in an unprecedented level of public interest and media attention on the field of mathematical epidemiology. Ever…
The Ebola virus is currently one of the most virulent pathogens for humans. The latest major outbreak occurred in Guinea, Sierra Leonne and Liberia in 2014. With the aim of understanding the spread of infection in the affected countries, it…
As South and Central American countries prepare for increased birth defects from Zika virus outbreaks and plan for mitigation strategies to minimize ongoing and future outbreaks, understanding important characteristics of Zika outbreaks and…
Our chances to halt epidemic outbreaks rely on how accurately we represent the population structure underlying the disease spread. When analyzing global epidemics this force us to consider metapopulation models taking into account intra-…
Towards the end of an infectious disease outbreak, when a period has elapsed without new case notifications, a key question for public health policy makers is whether the outbreak can be declared over. This requires the benefits of a…
Forecasting infectious disease outbreaks is hard. Forecasting emerging infectious diseases with limited historical data is even harder. In this paper, we investigate ways to improve emerging infectious disease forecasting under operational…
To understand the contact patterns of a population -- who is in contact with whom, and when the contacts happen -- is crucial for modeling outbreaks of infectious disease. Traditional theoretical epidemiology assumes that any individual can…
The dynamics that govern disease spread are hard to model because infections are functions of both the underlying pathogen as well as human or animal behavior. This challenge is increased when modeling how diseases spread between different…
Infectious disease outbreaks recapitulate biology: they emerge from the multi-level interaction of hosts, pathogens, and their shared environment. As a result, predicting when, where, and how far diseases will spread requires a complex…
Bayesian inference methods are useful in infectious diseases modeling due to their capability to propagate uncertainty, manage sparse data, incorporate latent structures, and address high-dimensional parameter spaces. However, parameter…
Vector-transmitted diseases such as dengue fever and chikungunya have been spreading rapidly in many parts of the world. The Zika virus has been known since 1947 and invaded South America in 2013. It can be transmitted not only by…
We study a simple realistic model for describing the diffusion of an infectious disease on a population of individuals. The dynamics is governed by a single functional delay differential equation, which, in the case of a large population,…
The medical domain is vast and diverse, with many existing embedding models focused on general healthcare applications. However, these models often struggle to capture a deep understanding of diseases due to their broad generalization…
Epidemiological models are an important tool in coping with epidemics, as they offer a forecast, even if often simplistic, of the behavior of the disease in the population. This allows responsible health agencies to organize themselves and…