Effectiveness of Intervention Strategies on MERS-CoV Transmission Dynamics in South Korea, 2015: Simulations on the Network Based on the Real-World Contact Data

Yunhwan Kim, Hohyung Ryu and Sunmi Lee
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Yunhwan Kim: College of General Education, Kookmin University, Seoul 01160, Korea
Hohyung Ryu: Department of Mathematics, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea
Sunmi Lee: Department of Applied Mathematics, Kyung Hee University, Yongin 17104, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: The MERS-CoV spread in South Korea in 2015 was not only the largest outbreak of MERS-CoV in the region other than the Middle East but also a historic epidemic in South Korea. Thus, investigation of the MERS-CoV transmission dynamics, especially by agent-based modeling, would be meaningful for devising intervention strategies for novel infectious diseases. In this study, an agent-based model on MERS-CoV transmission in South Korea in 2015 was built and analyzed. The prominent characteristic of this model was that it built the simulation environment based on the real-world contact tracing network, which can be characterized as being scale-free. In the simulations, we explored the effectiveness of three possible intervention scenarios; mass quarantine, isolation, and isolation combined with acquaintance quarantine. The differences in MERS-CoV transmission dynamics by the number of links of the index case agent were examined. The simulation results indicate that isolation combined with acquaintance quarantine is more effective than others, and they also suggest the key role of super-spreaders in MERS-CoV transmission.

Keywords: a scale-free network model; super-spreading events; MERS-CoV transmission; contact tracing network; isolation and targeted interventions; the basic reproduction number; degree distribution in secondary cases (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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