Influences of Taiwan Commuting Network on Emerging Pandemic Transmission Dynamics

• Main Authors: I Ting Wang, 王怡婷
• Other Authors: C. Y. Huang
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/62810181983624265565

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 資訊工程學系 === 99 === Emerging infectious diseases often cause large-scale spread and serious disaster through individual movement. It not only triggers a panic worldwide, because of the development of transportation construction, it also accelerates the transmission rate of disease spread in Taiwan. In this study, I integrated Taiwan's four major transportation networks (e.g., daily commuting route, rail, high-speed rail and airway) to simulate the spread of infectious diseases in Taiwan, with the research object the swine-adapted influenza A (H1N1) in Taiwan from 2009 to 2010. Furthermore, dividing Taiwan into six geographical parts, I evaluated and discussed the performance of different regional blockade strategies of six main regional of Taiwan. According to each regional blockade strategy, the consideration focuses on three: (a) the number of infective individuals, (b) the effectiveness of a regional blockade strategy, and (c) the cost loss of a regional blockade. Finally, I evaluated and then inferred the best regional blockade strategy for the future emerging infectious disease. As can be found, nearby towns are connected through daily commuting networks. The network integrating daily commuting and other three long-travel transportation network is small-world. The topological property explains why when the epidemic broke out in Taiwan, the influenza disease was rapidly transmitted to the whole island within two weeks. Under different regional blockade strategies, if only the daily commuting network is considered, the better strategy is blocking the outbreak or the neighboring town. However, when considering integrated four transportation networks, because of the long-distance transmission ability of disease, except for blocking the outbreak or the neighboring town, blocking Central and Southern Taiwan would also has low cost-loss and high policy performance.