Joseph Wu and colleagues (from the University of Hong Kong) developed a mathematical model to simulate the course of pandemic influenza in a typical city population and now report their results in the international medical journal PLoS Medicine. Their goal was to evaluate voluntary methods to reduce person-to-person transmission of influenza in the likely scenario that complete control cannot be achieved by mass vaccination and antiviral treatment alone.
Based on an influenza-associated mortality rate of 1.05% among symptomatic cases (based on the population excess mortality rate estimated for New York City in the 1918-1919 pandemic) the magnitude of the predicted benefit of these interventions--a reduction from 49% to 27% in the proportion of the population infected showing symptoms during the first year of the pandemic--would correspond to a reduction in the number of deaths by about 16,000 in a city the size of Hong Kong (6.8 million people).
As the study's authors point out, many countries are considering household-based interventions as part of their pandemic preparedness plans. This study should help to estimate the benefits of such interventions and the resources required to implement them.
Citation: Wu JT, Riley S, Fraser C, Leung GM (2006) Reducing the impact of the next influenza pandemic using household-based public health interventions. PLoS Med 3(9): e361
Contact: Andrew Hyde ahyde@plos.org 44-122-346-3330 Public Library of Science