Antiviral Prophylaxis and Isolation for the Control of Pandemic Influenza

Qingxia Zhang and Dingcheng Wang
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Qingxia Zhang: School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 2006, Xiyuan Avenue, West Hi-Tech Zone, Chengdu 611731, China
Dingcheng Wang: School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 2006, Xiyuan Avenue, West Hi-Tech Zone, Chengdu 611731, China

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: Before effective vaccines become available, antiviral drugs are considered as the major control strategies for a pandemic influenza. However, perhaps such control strategies can be severely hindered by the low-efficacy of antiviral drugs. For this reason, using antiviral drugs and an isolation strategy is included in our study. A compartmental model that allows for imported exposed individuals and asymptomatic cases is used to evaluate the effectiveness of control strategies via antiviral prophylaxis and isolation. Simulations show that isolation strategy plays a prominent role in containing transmission when antiviral drugs are not effective enough. Moreover, relatively few infected individuals need to be isolated per day. Because the accurate calculations of the needed numbers of antiviral drugs and the isolated infected are not easily available, we give two simple expressions approximating these numbers. We also derive an estimation for the total cost of these intervention strategies. These estimations obtained by a simple method provide a useful reference for the management department about the epidemic preparedness plans.

Keywords: mathematical modeling; pandemic influenza; antiviral prophylaxis; isolation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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