publications, research

new knol on the estimate of H1N1 cases in Mexico at the early stage of the pandemic Nov. 19, 2009

We recently published a knol in PLoS Currents Influenza about the estimate of H1N1 cases in Mexico at the early stage of the pandemic conducted with GLEaM:

Estimate of Novel Influenza A/H1N1 cases in Mexico at the early stage of the pandemic with a spatially structured epidemic model V. Colizza, A. Vespignani, N. Perra, C. Poletto, B. Gonçalves, H. Hu, D. Balcan, D. Paolotti, W. Van den Broeck, M. Tizzoni, P. Bajardi, J.J. Ramasco. PLoS Currents: Influenza. 2009 Nov 11:RRN1129.

Using GLEaM, we simulate the epidemic spreading and provide an ab-initio calculation of the number of cases in Mexico at the end of April and the beginning of May.

The results provide support to the possibility of a reporting ratio of infected cases in Mexico as low as 1 in 100, as already pointed out by other studies. This finding is important when evaluating the massive amount of data which are now being collected in a large number of countries around the world. We can easily imagine that the reporting rate as well as any estimate of the cumulative attack rate in most of the countries could be easily underestimated by orders of magnitude.

For more details on our results, please have a look at this post.