Related papers: Population-scale testing can suppress the spread o…
COVID-19, a viral respiratory pandemic, has rapidly spread throughout the globe. Large scale and rapid testing of the population is required to contain the disease, but such testing is prohibitive in terms of resources, cost and time.…
Consider a Markovian SIR epidemic model in a homogeneous community. To this model we add a rate at which individuals are tested, and once an infectious individual tests positive it is isolated and each of their contacts are traced and…
The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the importance of non-medical interventions, such as testing and isolation of infected individuals, in the control of epidemics. Here, we show how to minimize testing needs while maintaining the number of…
Efficient testing and vaccination protocols are critical aspects of epidemic management. To study the optimal allocation of limited testing and vaccination resources in a heterogeneous contact network of interacting susceptible, recovered,…
We present a stochastic epidemic model to study the effect of various preventive measures, such as uniform reduction of contacts and transmission, vaccination, isolation, screening and contact tracing, on a disease outbreak in a…
We propose a mathematical model based on probability theory to optimize COVID-19 testing by a multi-step batch testing approach with variable batch sizes. This model and simulation tool dramatically increase the efficiency and efficacy of…
Containment of epidemic outbreaks entails great societal and economic costs. Cost-effective containment strategies rely on efficiently identifying infected individuals, making the best possible use of the available testing resources.…
Estimating the prevalence of a disease is necessary for evaluating and mitigating risks of its transmission within or between populations. Estimates that consider how prevalence changes with time provide more information about these risks…
This paper is based on the observation that, during Covid-19 epidemic, the choice of which individuals should be tested has an important impact on the effectiveness of selective confinement measures. This decision problem is closely related…
To contain the propagation of emerging diseases that are transmissible from human to human, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) aimed at reducing the interactions between humans are usually implemented. One example of the latter kind of…
In the face of serious infectious diseases, governments endeavour to implement containment measures such as public vaccination at a macroscopic level. Meanwhile, individuals tend to protect themselves by avoiding contacts with infections at…
We propose a novel testing and containment strategy in order to contain the spread of SARS-CoV2 while permitting large parts of the population to resume social and economic activity. Our approach recognises the fact that testing capacities…
Changes in human behavior are increasingly recognized as a major determinant of epidemic dynamics. Although collective activity can be modified through imposed measures to control epidemic progression, spontaneous changes can also arise as…
Social distancing reduces infectious disease transmission by limiting contact frequency and proximity within a community. However, compliance varies due to its impact on daily life. This paper explores the effects of compliance on social…
Rapid testing of appropriate specimens from patients suspected for a disease during an epidemic, such as the current Coronavirus outbreak, is of a great importance for the disease management and control. We propose a method to enhance…
Disease control is of paramount importance in public health with infectious disease extinction as the ultimate goal. Although diseases may go extinct due to random loss of effective contacts where the infection is transmitted to new…
Epidemic outbreaks pose significant challenges to public health and socio-economic stability, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of disease transmission dynamics and effective control strategies. This article discusses the…
In pandemics or epidemics, public health authorities need to rapidly test a large number of individuals, both to determine the line of treatment as well as to know the spread of infection to plan containment, mitigation and future…
The cataclysmic contagion based calamity -- Covid-19 has shown us a clear need for a comprehensive community based strategy that overcomes the sheer complexity of controlling it and the caveats of current methods. In this regard, as seen in…
The outbreak of an infectious disease in a human population can lead to individuals responding with preventive measures in an attempt to avoid getting infected. This leads to changes in contact patterns. However, as we show in this paper,…