scholarly journals Special Issue: Mathematical modeling and analysis of social and ecological determinants for the dynamics of infectious diseases and public health policies

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 8535-8537
Author(s):  
Wandi Ding ◽  
◽  
Yun Kang ◽  
Anuj Mubayi ◽  
◽  
...  

PLoS Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. e3000506
Author(s):  
Olga Krylova ◽  
David J. D. Earn

Smallpox is unique among infectious diseases in the degree to which it devastated human populations, its long history of control interventions, and the fact that it has been successfully eradicated. Mortality from smallpox in London, England was carefully documented, weekly, for nearly 300 years, providing a rare and valuable source for the study of ecology and evolution of infectious disease. We describe and analyze smallpox mortality in London from 1664 to 1930. We digitized the weekly records published in the London Bills of Mortality (LBoM) and the Registrar General’s Weekly Returns (RGWRs). We annotated the resulting time series with a sequence of historical events that might have influenced smallpox dynamics in London. We present a spectral analysis that reveals how periodicities in reported smallpox mortality changed over decades and centuries; many of these changes in epidemic patterns are correlated with changes in control interventions and public health policies. We also examine how the seasonality of reported smallpox mortality changed from the 17th to 20th centuries in London.


2019 ◽  
pp. 123-143
Author(s):  
Mary Augusta Brazelton

This chapter focuses on vaccination in the early years of the People's Republic of China. The 1949 establishment of the PRC formally ended the conflicts that had engulfed China for almost twenty years. However, the new nation was still in crisis. The People's Liberation Army continued to wage military campaigns in Tibet and Xinjiang, war loomed in Korea, and infectious diseases still threatened the country's population. In 1949, bubonic plague struck Tianjin and Beijing, and in the following year smallpox broke out in Shanghai. The establishment of national vaccination campaigns, first against smallpox in 1950 and then against tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other diseases in 1952, signaled a national commitment of the new regime to epidemic prevention. Such an achievement was possible, this chapter argues, because new systems of recordkeeping, surveillance, and accountability accompanied the implementation of public health policies. These programs built power over life by self-consciously protecting it from epidemic catastrophe.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Roche ◽  
Hélène Broutin ◽  
Frédéric Simard

In Part III, we have highlighted how the fundamental knowledge presented in Part II can be translated into real and concrete public health strategies. Mathematical modeling, inherited from ecological knowledge, has become a fundamental tool to design such strategies, as well as to overcome some crucial caveats like fluctuating sampling effort....


2021 ◽  
pp. jech-2020-216240
Author(s):  
Iona MacDonald ◽  
Jye-Lin Hsu

With almost no community-transmitted cases and without any complete lockdown throughout 2020, Taiwan is one of very few countries worldwide that has recorded minimal impact from the COVID-19 pandemic attack. This is despite being only 130 km from China and having frequent business communications with that country, where COVID-19 first emerged. At the end of December 2020, Taiwan had recorded just 873 cases and 7 deaths, in a country of around 24 million people. How to determine the effectiveness of public health policies is an important issue that must be resolved, especially in those countries that have experienced few cases of community-transmitted COVID-19. Our analysis of epidemiological data in Taiwan relating to influenza-like illness (ILI), enterovirus and diarrhoea from the past 3 years reveals dramatic reductions in the incidence of ILI and enterovirus in 2020, compared with 2018 and 2019. These reductions occurred within 2 weeks of the government issuing public health policies for COVID-19 and indicate that such policies can effectively reduce infectious diseases overall. In contrast, no such reduction in ILI activity was observed in 2020 after the first COVID-19 case was reported in the USA. We suggest that infectious diseases data can be used to inform effective public health policies needed to break the transmission chain of COVID-19 and that ongoing monitoring of infectious diseases data can provide confidence about nationwide health.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1584-1603
Author(s):  
Gilberto Gonzalez‐Parra ◽  
Miguel Díaz‐Rodríguez ◽  
Abraham J. Arenas

JAMIA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Peng ◽  
Rowland W Pettit ◽  
Christopher I Amos

Abstract Objectives We developed COVID-19 Outbreak Simulator (https://ictr.github.io/covid19-outbreak-simulator/) to quantitatively estimate the effectiveness of preventative and interventive measures to prevent and battle COVID-19 outbreaks for specific populations. Materials and methods Our simulator simulates the entire course of infection and transmission of the virus among individuals in heterogeneous populations, subject to operations and influences, such as quarantine, testing, social distancing, and community infection. It provides command-line and Jupyter notebook interfaces and a plugin system for user-defined operations. Results The simulator provides quantitative estimates for COVID-19 outbreaks in a variety of scenarios and assists the development of public health policies, risk-reduction operations, and emergency response plans. Discussion Our simulator is powerful, flexible, and customizable, although successful applications require realistic estimation and robustness analysis of population-specific parameters. Conclusion Risk assessment and continuity planning for COVID-19 outbreaks are crucial for the continued operation of many organizations. Our simulator will be continuously expanded to meet this need.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
R S Caló ◽  
B S N Souza ◽  
N D Galvão ◽  
R A G Souza ◽  
J C S Oliveira ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Colorectal cancer has been one of the cancers that most contributed to mortality, in both sexes in the world. In Brazil, cancer is among the top five causes of death and colorectal cancer is ranked on the fifth position. Of the Federative Units belonging to the Legal Amazon, Mato Grosso stands out for the higher adjusted incidence of colorectal cancer for both sexes. Thus, the objective is to characterize deaths from colorectal cancer, according to sociodemographic variables in Mato Grosso from 2000 to 2016. Methods A descriptive study was carried out, using data from the Mortality Information System, made available by the Department of Health of the Mato Grosso State. Deaths of all ages were selected, whose basic cause was identified by the codes from the International Classification of Diseases: (C.18) colon cancer, (C.19) rectosigmoid junction cancer, (C.20) rectal cancer or (C.21) anus cancer. Results Between 2000 and 2016, 31,607 deaths from cancer were registered. Of these, 1,750 (5.6%) were due to colorectal cancer. An increased number of deaths was observed at the end of the period, with a variation from 46 deaths in 2000 from 173 in 2016. Highest frequency was verified in men (51.3%), people aged 60 years or older (59.7%), black (54.6%), married (52.3%) and those with primary education (55.2%). According to Brazilian occupation classification options or those answers filled out on the death certificate, highest frequency were for “Retired” (26.2%), “Housewife” (23.1%), Agricultural/Forestry and Fisheries” (11.3%) and “Production of Industrial Goods and Services” (10.3%). Conclusions This study evidenced the increased number of deaths due to colorectal cancer in Mato Grosso State, and identified priority groups for interventions through public health policies which should include screening and early diagnosis to cope with the disease. Key messages Evidenced the increased number of deaths due to colorectal cancer in Mato Grosso State. Identified priority groups for interventions through public health policies.


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