Modeling the effect of school closures in a pandemic scenario: exploring two different contact matrices.
Clin Infect Dis
; 60 Suppl 1: S58-63, 2015 May 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25878302
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
School closures may delay the epidemic peak of the next influenza pandemic, but whether school closure can delay the peak until pandemic vaccine is ready to be deployed is uncertain.METHODS:
To study the effect of school closures on the timing of epidemic peaks, we built a deterministic susceptible-infected-recovered model of influenza transmission. We stratified the U.S. population into 4 age groups (0-4, 5-19, 20-64, and ≥ 65 years), and used contact matrices to model the average number of potentially disease transmitting, nonphysical contacts.RESULTS:
For every week of school closure at day 5 of introduction and a 30% clinical attack rate scenario, epidemic peak would be delayed by approximately 5 days. For a 15% clinical attack rate scenario, 1 week closure would delay the peak by 9 days. Closing schools for less than 84 days (12 weeks) would not, however, reduce the estimated total number of cases.CONCLUSIONS:
Unless vaccine is available early, school closure alone may not be able to delay the peak until vaccine is ready to be deployed. Conversely, if vaccination begins quickly, school closure may be helpful in providing the time to vaccinate school-aged children before the pandemic peaks.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Schools
/
Disaster Planning
/
Influenza, Human
/
Pandemics
/
Models, Theoretical
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
America do norte
Language:
En
Journal:
Clin Infect Dis
Journal subject:
DOENCAS TRANSMISSIVEIS
Year:
2015
Type:
Article