What is the best control strategy for multiple infectious disease outbreaks?

Effective control of infectious disease outbreaks is an important public health goal. In a number of recent studies, it has been shown how different intervention measures like travel restrictions, school closures, treatment and prophylaxis might allow us to control outbreaks of diseases, such as SARS, pandemic influenza and others. In these studies, control of a single outbreak is considered. It is, however, not clear how one should handle a situation where multiple outbreaks are likely to occur. Here, we identify the best control strategy for such a situation. We further discuss ways in which such a strategy can be implemented to achieve additional public health objectives.

[1]  K. Wickwire.  Mathematical models for the control of pests and infectious diseases: a survey. , 1977, Theoretical population biology.

[2]  David Greenhalgh,et al.  Control of an epidemic spreading in a heterogeneously mixing population , 1986 .

[3]  P. Kaye.  Infectious diseases of humans: Dynamics and control , 1993 .

[4]  A S Perelson,et al.  Emergence of drug resistance during an influenza epidemic: insights from a mathematical model. , 1998, The Journal of infectious diseases.

[5]  D Clancy,et al.  Optimal intervention for epidemic models with general infection and removal rate functions , 1999, Journal of mathematical biology.

[6]  Herbert W. Hethcote,et al.  The Mathematics of Infectious Diseases , 2000, SIAM Rev..

[7]  H. Behncke.  Optimal control of deterministic epidemics , 2000 .

[8]  Almut Scherer,et al.  Mathematical models of vaccination. , 2002, British medical bulletin.

[9]  J. Robins,et al.  Transmission Dynamics and Control of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome , 2003, Science.

[10]  I. Longini,et al.  The critical vaccination fraction for heterogeneous epidemic models. , 2003, Mathematical biosciences.

[11]  Mei-Shang Ho,et al.  Preparing to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome and other respiratory infections , 2004, The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

[12]  Elizabeth Rea,et al.  Public health measures to control the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome during the outbreak in Toronto. , 2004, The New England journal of medicine.

[13]  J. Wallinga,et al.  Different Epidemic Curves for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Reveal Similar Impacts of Control Measures , 2004, American journal of epidemiology.

[14]  A. Danchin,et al.  The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome , 2003 .

[15]  R. Webster.  Wet markets—a continuing source of severe acute respiratory syndrome and influenza? , 2004, The Lancet.

[16]  J. Robins,et al.  Transmissibility of 1918 pandemic influenza , 2004, Nature.

[17]  Cécile Viboud,et al.  Multinational impact of the 1968 Hong Kong influenza pandemic: evidence for a smoldering pandemic. , 2005, The Journal of infectious diseases.

[18]  R. Brunham,et al.  Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS): a year in review. , 2005, Annual review of medicine.

[19]  A. Nizam,et al.  Containing Pandemic Influenza at the Source , 2005, Science.

[20]  Angus Nicoll,et al.  Avian influenza A (H5N1) infection in humans. , 2005, The New England journal of medicine.

[21]  M. Newman.  Threshold effects for two pathogens spreading on a network. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[22]  Mel Krajden,et al.  Modeling Control Strategies of Respiratory Pathogens , 2005, Emerging infectious diseases.

[23]  Prasert Auewarakul,et al.  Probable person-to-person transmission of avian influenza A (H5N1). , 2005, The New England journal of medicine.

[24]  M. Halloran,et al.  Finding optimal vaccination strategies for pandemic influenza using genetic algorithms. , 2005, Journal of theoretical biology.

[25]  D. Cummings,et al.  Strategies for containing an emerging influenza pandemic in Southeast Asia , 2005, Nature.

[26]  Sebastian Bonhoeffer,et al.  This PDF file includes: SOM Text , 2022 .

[27]  Carl T. Bergstrom,et al.  Pandemic Influenza: Risk of Multiple Introductions and the Need to Prepare for Them , 2006, PLoS medicine.

[28]  Christl A. Donnelly,et al.  Real-time Estimates in Early Detection of SARS , 2006, Emerging infectious diseases.

[29]  C. Macken,et al.  Mitigation strategies for pandemic influenza in the United States. , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[30]  H. Grundmann,et al.  Do We Need to Put Society First? The Potential for Tragedy in Antimicrobial Resistance , 2006, PLoS medicine.

[31]  D. Cummings,et al.  Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic , 2006, Nature.

[32]  B. Levin,et al.  Antiviral Resistance and the Control of Pandemic Influenza , 2007, PLoS medicine.