Frequent Travelers and Rate of Spread of Epidemics

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Hollingsworth, T. Déirdre ; Ferguson, Neil M. ; Anderson, Roy M.
• Description:
  A small proportion of air travelers make disproportionately more journeys than the rest of travelers. They also tend to interact predominantly with other frequent travelers in hotels and airport lounges. This group has the potential to accelerate global spread of infectious respiratory diseases. Using an epidemiologic model, we simulated exportation of cases from severe acute respiratory syndrome-like and influenza-like epidemics in a population for which a small proportion travel more frequently than the rest. Our simulations show that frequent travelers accelerate international spread of epidemics only if they are infected early in an outbreak and the outbreak does not expand rapidly. If the epidemic growth rate is high, as is likely for pandemic influenza, heterogeneities in travel are frequently overwhelmed by the large number of infected persons in the majority population and the resulting high probability that some of these persons will take an international flight.
• Subjects:
  Aircraft Communicable Diseases Disease Outbreaks Epidemics Humans Influenza International Air Travel Internationality Mathematical Model Models, Biological Research SARS Stochastic Processes Time Factors Travel

  More +
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 13(9):1288-1294.
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Volume:
  13
• Issue:
  9
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:e39a179985cea14c60277759c72c766cbb117144c734eabcae6b46f47fa38c01
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/16695/cdc_16695_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 243.55 KB ]