Critical role of nosocomial transmission in the Toronto SARS outbreak

Glenn Webb; Martin J. Blaser; Huaiping Zhu; Sten Ardal; Jianhong Wu; Glenn Webb; Martin J. Blaser; Huaiping Zhu; Sten Ardal; Jianhong Wu

doi:10.3934/mbe.2004.1.1

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2004, Volume 1, Issue 1: 1-13. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2004.1.1

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Critical role of nosocomial transmission in the Toronto SARS outbreak

1.
Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 1326 Stevenson Center, Nashville, TN 37240
2.
Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, OBV A606, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
3.
Laboratory for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3
4.
Central East Health Information Partnership, Box 159, 4950 Yonge Street, Suite 610, Toronto, ON M2N 6K1

Received: 01 December 2003 Accepted: 29 June 2018 Published: 01 March 2004
MSC : 92D30.

We develop a compartmental mathematical model to address the role of hospitals in severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) transmission dynamics, which partially explains the heterogeneity of the epidemic. Comparison of the effects of two major policies, strict hospital infection control procedures and community-wide quarantine measures, implemented in Toronto two weeks into the initial outbreak, shows that their combination is the key to short-term containment and that quarantine is the key to long-term containment.
- epidemiology,
- coronavirus,
- containment,
- quarantine.,
- nonlinear dynamics,
- severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
- mathematical model
Citation: Glenn Webb, Martin J. Blaser, Huaiping Zhu, Sten Ardal, Jianhong Wu. Critical role of nosocomial transmission in the Toronto SARS outbreak[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2004, 1(1): 1-13. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2004.1.1

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Abstract

We develop a compartmental mathematical model to address the role of hospitals in severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) transmission dynamics, which partially explains the heterogeneity of the epidemic. Comparison of the effects of two major policies, strict hospital infection control procedures and community-wide quarantine measures, implemented in Toronto two weeks into the initial outbreak, shows that their combination is the key to short-term containment and that quarantine is the key to long-term containment.
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© 2004 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)