On the usefulness of set-membership estimation in the epidemiology of infectious diseases.

We present a method, known in control theory, to give set-membership estimates for the states of a population in which an infectious disease is spreading. An estimation is reasonable due to the fact that the parameters of the equations describing the dynamics of the disease are not known with certainty. We discuss the properties of the resulting estimations. These include the possibility to determine best- or worst-case-scenarios and identify under which circumstances they occur, as well as a method to calculate confidence intervals for disease trajectories under sparse data. We give numerical examples of the technique using data from the 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa. We conclude that the method presented here can be used to extract additional information from epidemiological data.

Set-membership estimations for the evolution of infectious diseases in heterogeneous populations.

The paper presents an approach for set-membership estimation of the state of a heterogeneous population in which an infectious disease is spreading. The population state may consist of susceptible, infected, recovered, etc. groups, where the individuals are heterogeneous with respect to traits, relevant to the particular disease. Set-membership estimations in this context are reasonable, since only vague information about the distribution of the population along the space of heterogeneity is available in practice. The presented approach comprises adapted versions of methods which are known in estimation and control theory, and involve solving parametrized families of optimization problems. Since the models of disease spreading in heterogeneous populations involve distributed systems (with non-local dynamics and endogenous boundary conditions), these problems are non-standard. The paper develops the needed theoretical instruments and a solution scheme. SI and SIR models of epidemic diseases are considered as case studies and the results reveal qualitative properties that may be of interest.

Heterogeneous population dynamics and scaling laws near epidemic outbreaks.

In this paper, we focus on the influence of heterogeneity and stochasticity of the population on the dynamical structure of a basic susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model. First we prove that, upon a suitable mathematical reformulation of the basic reproduction number, the homogeneous system and the heterogeneous system exhibit a completely analogous global behaviour. Then we consider noise terms to incorporate the fluctuation effects and the random import of the disease into the population and analyse the influence of heterogeneity on warning signs for critical transitions (or tipping points). This theory shows that one may be able to anticipate whether a bifurcation point is close before it happens. We use numerical simulations of a stochastic fast-slow heterogeneous population SIS model and show various aspects of heterogeneity have crucial influences on the scaling laws that are used as early-warning signs for the homogeneous system. Thus, although the basic structural qualitative dynamical properties are the same for both systems, the quantitative features for epidemic prediction are expected to change and care has to be taken to interpret potential warning signs for disease outbreaks correctly.