Critical Factors for Parameterisation of Disease Diagnosis Modelling for Anthrax, Plague and Smallpox
Abstract
This paper undertakes a technical review of the properties of three diseases often associated with the threat of bioterrorism: anthrax, plague and smallpox. While the literature on these agents is extensive, the information is not generally available in a concise form for the purpose of modelling the course of spread of disease through a population, including the emergence of observable indicators of community infection. The focus here is to extract from the literature information describing these agents for the purpose of developing models of symptoms emergence and disease progression in individual people, as well as parameters describing how the diseases may spread in a community and be observable. This information can be used to parameterise models of disease diagnosis in a community, for the purpose of analysing candidate syndromic surveillance systems. Information is also provided on common diseases that may be misdiagnosed in the early stages of an outbreak due to an act of bioterrorism, namely, influenza, chickenpox, and community acquired pneumonia. Where information is not available in precise quantitative form, semi-quantitative graphs are provided, which provide a useful summary for developers of probabilistic models of disease diagnosis.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA575284
Entities
People
- Allen Cheng
- Cecile Aubron
- Peter Dawson
- Ralph Gailis
- Wai M. Lau
Organizations
- Defence Science and Technology Group