On the origin of the super-spreading events in the SARS epidemic

Europhysics Letters

Volumn 68, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 147-152

  Fang, Haiping ^a,b   Chen, Jixiu ^c   Hu, Jun ^a,b   Xu, Lisa X ^b  

^a SHANGHAI INSTITUTE OF APPLIED PHYSICS   (China)

^b SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY   (China)

^c SECOND MILITARY MEDICAL UNIVERSITY   (China)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 5644254814     PISSN: 02955075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1209/epl/i2004-10163-0     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. PEIRIS J. S. et al., Lancet, 361 (2003) 1319.
2. WEBBY R. J. and WEBSTER R. G., Science, 302 (2003) 1519.
3. CYRANOSLI D. and LUMPUR K., Nature, 423 (2003) 905.
4. EICKMANN M. et al., Science, 302 (2003) 1504.
5. LI W. H. et al., Nature, 426 (2003) 450.
6. YANG H. T. et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100 (2003) 13190.
7. DYE C. and GAY N., Science, 300 (2003) 1884.
8. LIPSITCH M. et al., Science, 300 (2003) 1961.
9. RILEY S. et al., Science, 300 (2003) 1966.
10. KHAN S. A. et al., J. Infect. Dis., 179 (1999) S76.
11. PAUNIO M. et al., Am. J. Epidemiol., 148 (1998) 1103.
12. Nature, 423 (2003) 784 (special report).
13. RHODES C. J. and ANDERSON R. M., Theor. Pop. Biol., 52 (1997) 101.
14. WATTS D. J. and STROGATZ S. H., Nature, 393 (1998) 440.
15. ALBERT R. and BARABASI A., Rev. Mod. Phys., 74 (2002) 47.
16. KRETZSCHMAR M. and MORRIS M., Math. Bios., 144 (1996) 165.
17. BAUCH C. T. and GALVANI A. P., Math. Biol., 184 (2003) 101.
18. ROHANI P. et al., Science, 286 (1999) 968.
19. CHOWELL G. et al., J. Theor. Biol., 224 (2003) 1.
20. CHOI B. C. K. and PAK A. W. P., J. Epidem. Com. Health, 57 (2003) 831.
21. FERGUSON N. M., DONNELLY C. A. and ANDERSON R. M., Science, 292 (2001) 1155.
22. KEELING M. J. et al., Science, 294 (2001) 813.
23. QIAN Y. H., D'HUMIÉRES D. and LALLEMAND P., Europhys. Lett., 17 (1992) 479.
24. DONNELLY C. A. et al., Lancet, 371 (2003) 1761.
25. The period from onset to hospital admission can be approximated by γ distribution [24] while there is no report on the distribution of the infectious period after hospital admission.
26. MMWR, 52 (2003) 405.
27. ANDERSON R. M. and MAY R. M., Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control (Oxford University Press, Oxford) 1991.
28. seed will not change the consistence between the theoretical predictions and the SARS data reported.
29. 0 = 6 days is assumed.
30. q0, considering that infection-control measures have been expanded from March 22 [26].
31. The epidemic in Canada can also be fitted by two seeds, while the parameters for the outbreaks due to those two seeds are different. The Hong Kong epidemic has been characterized by two large clusters of cases, at least 125 people were infected on or soon after March 3 in the Prince of Wales Hospital (PWH) and over 300 people became infected in the Amoy Gardens (AG) estate, together with ongoing transmission to close contacts [9]. The epidemic by ongoing transmission can be analyzed by our model. However, as far as we know, there are only data of hospital admission for the ongoing transmission reported [24]. The infective cases will have to be divided into those before and after hospital admission so that the results can be compared with the data reported. If γ distributions are assumed for both the infectious time periods before and after hospital admission, the data of Hong Kong can be well fitted by numerical simulations. We do not consider the epidemic of Taiwan in China, since that epidemic is the later stage of the SARS all over the world so that it is not easy to determine the input cases.