A new surveillance and spatio-temporal visualization tool SIMID: SIMulation of Infectious Diseases using random networks and GIS

  • Authors:

  • Lilia L. RamíRez-RamíRez;Yulia R. Gel;Mary Thompson;Eileen De Villa;Matt Mcpherson

  • Affiliations:

  • Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Mexico City, Mexico;Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada and Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Johns Hopkins University, USA;Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada;Peel Public Health, 7120 Hurontario Street, Mississauga, ON, Canada;Infonaut Inc., 255 Consumers Road, Suite 500, Toronto, ON, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

In this paper we discuss the SIMID tool for simulation of the spread of infectious disease, enabling spatio-temporal visualization of the dynamics of influenza outbreaks. SIMID is based on modern random network methodology and implemented within the R and GIS frameworks. The key advantage of SIMID is that it allows not only for the construction of a possible scenario for the spread of an infectious disease but also for the assessment of mitigation strategies, variation and uncertainty in disease parameters and randomness in the progression of an outbreak. We illustrate SIMID by application to an influenza epidemic simulation in a population constructed to resemble the Region of Peel, Ontario, Canada.