This paper is concerned with the cost Cis
= aWis
+ bTis
(a, b > 0) of a general stochastic epidemic starting with i infectives and s susceptibles; Tis
denotes the duration of the epidemic, and Wis
the area under the infective curve. The joint Laplace-Stieltjes transform of (Wis, Tis
) is studied, and a recursive equation derived for it. The duration Tis
and its mean Nis
are considered in some detail, as are also Wis
and its mean Mis
. Using the results obtained, bounds are found for the mean cost of the epidemic.
The Itô calculus and white noise theory: a brief survey toward general stochastic integration