Strategies for containing an influenza pandemic: the case of Italy

Stefano Merler; Giuseppe Jurman; Cesare Furlanello; Caterina Rizzo; Antonino  Bella; Marco  Massari; Marta Luisa  Ciofi degli Atti

1st International ICST Conference on Bio Inspired Models of Network, Information and Computing Systems

Research Article

Strategies for containing an influenza pandemic: the case of Italy

Cite: BibTeX Plain Text

@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1145/1315843.1315857,
    author={Stefano Merler and Giuseppe Jurman and Cesare Furlanello and Caterina Rizzo and Antonino  Bella and Marco  Massari and Marta Luisa  Ciofi degli Atti},
    title={Strategies for containing an influenza pandemic: the case of Italy},
    proceedings={1st International ICST Conference on Bio Inspired Models of Network, Information and Computing Systems},
    publisher={ACM},
    proceedings_a={BIONETICS},
    year={2006},
    month={12},
    keywords={},
    doi={10.1145/1315843.1315857}
}

Stefano Merler
Giuseppe Jurman
Cesare Furlanello
Caterina Rizzo
Antonino Bella
Marco Massari
Marta Luisa Ciofi degli Atti
Year: 2006
Strategies for containing an influenza pandemic: the case of Italy
BIONETICS
ACM
DOI: 10.1145/1315843.1315857

Stefano Merler¹^,*, Giuseppe Jurman¹^,*, Cesare Furlanello¹^,*, Caterina Rizzo²^,*, Antonino Bella³^,*, Marco Massari³^,*, Marta Luisa Ciofi degli Atti³^,*

1: ITC-irst, Trento, Italy
2: Department of Pharmaco-Biology, University of Bari, Bari, Italy
3: National Centre for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy

*Contact email: merler@itc.it, jurman@itc.it, furlan@itc.it, caterina.rizzo@iss.it, antonino.bella@iss.it, marco.massari@iss.it, marta.ciofi@iss.it

Abstract

In this paper we introduce an individual based model for simulating the spread of an emerging influenza pandemic in Italy and testing the effectiveness of some containing strategies including vaccination, antiviral prophylaxis and quarantine measures to increase social distances. Our results show that while the probability of interrupting a large outbreak is negligible, a combination of the control measures can be effective in reducing the incidence of infection. In particular, in the worst case, an incidence reduction from about 50% to about 10% can be hopefully achieved.

Published: 2006-12-13
Publisher: ACM

: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1315843.1315857