Name ______________________________________ Class __________ Date _______

Modeling Infectious Diseases

Background:

Throughout history, infectious diseases have had a large impact on the human population. Althoughinfectious diseases are present in human populations at all times to some degree, the effects of

epidemics

(def: a rapid spread of a disease)

are the most noticeable and spectacular. For example, in 14thcentury Europe, one quarter of the total population died from the Black Death. In 1520,approximately half of the 3.5 million members of the Aztec population died of smallpox. (Corteztook advantage of the situation to overthrow their empire.) Between 1918 and 1921, the Soviet Unionexperienced about 25 million cases of typhus with a death rate of approximately 10 percent. Yetanother, for the two decades starting in 1934, tropical Africa suffered a nearly 40% childhoodmortality rate from malaria and malaria-related diseases, which still pose a major threat today.

Illustration of the Black Death from the

Toggenburg

Bible (1411)

Currently, there is worldwide concern over the spread of many diseases, such as HIV, the viruswhich causes AIDS. In the United States, tens of thousands of deaths have been reported from thisdisease since the start of the epidemic in the late 1970’s. The impact has been even more severe inother parts of the world. In particular, central Africa has been severely affected by this disease witheven more serious effects expected to be felt in the coming years.

Epidemiology

is the field of study which focuses on infectious diseases and their outbreaks. Forcenturies people have been attempting to understand and describe the phenomenon of infectiousdiseases. Daniel Bernoulli (1760) appears to have been the first person to apply mathematics to thestudy of infectious diseases.Ethical considerations as well as time constraints make it virtually impossible to do laboratory studiesof the spread of an infectious disease throughout a population. However, mathematical models canbe used to simulate the spread of a disease, and can therefore help to predict its impact.

The SIR Model:

Imagine a community having a total population,

. This population can be divided into three classesof people who are:-

Susceptible (S)

are those who don’t yet have it but can get it.

- Infected

(I)

are those who have the infection and can spread it to others.-

Removed (R)

are those who had it and recovered or died.

N = S + I + R

.Given the nature of an infectious disease, the numbers in each group will change over time: Infectedpeople come into contact with susceptible people, who then become infected as well. Infected peopleeventually recover and, depending on the disease, are now immune to it or temporarily so. Thesechanges create what is called a

dynamic

(

def: lively, changing, active

) system. One mathematicalmodel expresses that an epidemic can be predicted if three values are known:1)

the number of susceptible people at the start2)

the infection rate (disease specific)3)

the recovery rate (disease specific)The severity of the outbreak is indicated by the percentage of susceptible people who get infected.

The Control Scenario:

•

500 total students at a school.

•

One student becomes sick with the flu.

•

499 students are susceptible.

•

Once you catch the flu and recover from it, you are immune to it.

•

An infected person remains contagious and sick for an average of 5 days,which means that on average 20% (0.20) recover every day.

•

An infection rate for the flu has been mathematically determined to be a 1/1000 chance.1.

a. For the formula, what values do we know at the start, given the standard scenario above?N = S + I + RN= _____ S=_____ I= _____ R=_____ b. Based on the data above, sketch three lines that display your prediction of how eachpopulation - susceptible, infected, and recovered - would be affected as the days pass. Use thecolors in the key to code each group.c. Briefly explain your predicted trend for each population.Susceptible trend:Infected trend:Recovered trend: