A Note on the Risk of Infections Invading Unaffected Regions

• Main Authors: Marcos Amaku, Francisco Antonio Bezerra Coutinho, Margaret Armstrong, Eduardo Massad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2018-01-01
• Series: Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/6289681

We present two probabilistic models to estimate the risk of introducing infectious diseases into previously unaffected countries/regions by infective travellers. We analyse two distinct situations, one dealing with a directly transmitted infection (measles in Italy in 2017) and one dealing with a vector-borne infection (Zika virus in Rio de Janeiro, which may happen in the future). To calculate the risk in the first scenario, we used a simple, nonhomogeneous birth process. The second model proposed in this paper provides a way to calculate the probability that local mosquitoes become infected by the arrival of a single infective traveller during his/her infectiousness period. The result of the risk of measles invasion of Italy was of 93% and the result of the risk of Zika virus invasion of Rio de Janeiro was of 22%.