Skip to main content
PMC home page
Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection
. 2008 Apr 11;14(3):209–221. doi: 10.1007/s10588-008-9027-1

Pandemic simulation of antivirals + school closures: buying time until strain-specific vaccine is available

S M Mniszewski 1,✉, S Y Del Valle 1, P D Stroud 1, J M Riese 1, S J Sydoriak 1
PMCID: PMC7087848  PMID: 32214872

Abstract

A strain-specific vaccine is unlikely to be available in the early phases of a potential H5N1 avian influenza pandemic. It could be months and at the current production rate may not provide timely protection to the population. Intervention strategies that control the spread of infection will be necessary in this situation, such as the use of the US stockpile of antiviral medication coupled with a 6-month school closure. The agent-based simulation model, EpiSimS, was used to assess the impact of this intervention strategy followed by three different vaccine approaches: (1) 2-dose, 80% effective, (2) 1-dose, 30% effective, and (3) 1 dose, 80% effective. Simulations show that the combination of antivirals, school closures, and a strain-specific vaccine can reduce morbidity and mortality while in effect. A significant second infection wave can occur with current vaccine technology once school closures are relaxed, though an ideal vaccine is able to contain it. In our simulations, worker absenteeism increases in all cases mostly attributed to household adults staying home with children due to the school closures.

Keywords: Epidemic modeling, Agent-based simulation, Social network dynamics

Biographies

S.M. Mniszewski

is a Technical Staff Member in the Information Science Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her current work includes the design and development of parallel high performance computing software for the EpiSimS agent-based discrete event disease simulation tool, as well as modeling of pandemic influenza intervention scenarios. She also contributes to projects such as parallel hydrological modeling, service-oriented architectures for simulation environments, and protein function prediction. She is a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM.

S.Y. Del Valle

completed her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences at the University of Iowa in May 2005, where she worked on analyzing the effects of behavioral changes and mixing patterns in mathematical models for smallpox epidemics. During graduate school she received an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and she worked at the Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS) under the supervision of the 2003 Ulam scholar. After earning her Ph.D. she joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as a postdoc in CCS-5 (Discrete Simulation Science Group). After only 8 months as a postdoc, she was converted to Technical Staff Member in D-3 (Systems Engineering and Integration Group). Sara has worked on developing and analyzing mathematical models for the spread of infectious diseases and she is part of the Epidemic Simulation System (EpiSimS) team and BioWatch team. Most recently, Sara has been working on analyzing different intervention strategies for Pandemic Influenza.

P.D. Stroud

has been on the technical staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory since 1984. He has designed, analyzed, and simulated systems relating to fusion power, strategic defense, theater missile defense, human decision-making behavior, anomalous aerosol detection, and disease spread.

J.M. Riese

is a Software Engineer working with the Los Alamos National Laboratory High Performance Computing Group. She joined the EpiSimS team in 2004.

S.J. Sydoriak

is a computer programmer with the Los Alamos National Laboratory High Performance Computing Group. He has been working on the EpiSimS project for five years. His interests include the sub-location model, processor synchronization, disease description, and disease transmission.

Footnotes

NAACSOS 2007 Best Paper Award.

Contributor Information

S. M. Mniszewski, Email: smm@lanl.gov

S. Y. Del Valle, Email: sdelvalle@lanl.gov

P. D. Stroud, Email: stroud@lanl.gov

J. M. Riese, Email: jriese@lanl.gov

S. J. Sydoriak, Email: sxs@lanl.gov

References

  1. Ackerman E, Elveback LR, Fox JP. Simulation of infectious disease epidemics. Springfield: Thomas; 1984. [Google Scholar]
  2. Colizza V, Barrat A, Barthelemy M, Valleron A, Vespignani A. Modeling the worldwide spread of pandemic influenza: baseline case and containment interventions. PLoS Med. 2007;4:95–109. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040013. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. De Jong MD, Thanh TT, Khanh TH, Hien VM, Smith GJD, et al. Oseltamivir resistance during treatment of Influenza A (H5N1) infection. N Engl J Med. 2005;353:2667–2672. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa054512. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Del Valle S, Hethcote H, Hyman JM, Castillo-Chavez C. Effects of behavioral changes in a smallpox attack model. Math Biosci. 2005;195:228–251. doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2005.03.006. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Esposito S, Marchisio P, Bosis S, Lambertini L, Claut L, et al. Clinical and economic impact of influenza vaccination on healthy children aged 2–5 years. Vaccine. 2006;25:629–635. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2005.08.054. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Fedson DS. Pandemic influenza and the global vaccine supply. Clin Infect Dis. 2003;302:1519–1522. doi: 10.1086/375056. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Ferguson NM, Cummings DA, Cauchemez S, Fraser C, Riley S, Meeyai A, et al. Strategies for containing an emerging influenza pandemic in southeast Asia. Nature. 2005;437:209–214. doi: 10.1038/nature04017. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. German TC, Kadau K, Longini IM, Jr, Macken CA. Mitigation strategies for pandemic influenza in the United States. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2006;103:5935–5940. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0601266103. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Heymann A, Chodick G, Reichman B, Kokia E, Laufer J. Influence of school closure on the incidence of viral respiratory diseases among children and on health care utilization. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2004;23:675–677. doi: 10.1097/01.inf.0000128778.54105.06. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Lin J, Zhang J, Dong X, Fang H, Chen N, Su N, et al. Safety and immunogenicity of an inactivated adjuvanted whole-virion influenza A (H5N1) vaccine: a phase I randomized controlled trial. Lancet. 2006;368:991–997. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69294-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Longini IM, Halloran ME, Nizam A, Yang Y. Containing pandemic influenza with antiviral agents. Am J Epidemiol. 2004;159:623–633. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwh092. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Markel H, Stern AM, Navarro JA, Michalsen JR (2006) A historical assessment of nonpharmaceutical disease containment strategies employed by selected US communities during the second wave of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic. Defense Threat Reduction Agency Unclassified Report 01-03-D-0017:1-275. Available: https://beta.saic.com/workshop/report/. Accessed 20 February 2007
  13. Michaels J (2003) Commercial buildings energy consumption survey. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cbecs/cbecs2003/detailed_tables_2003/detailed_tables_2003.html
  14. Monto AS. Vaccines and antiviral drugs in pandemic preparedness. Emerg Infect Dis. 2006;12(1):55–60. doi: 10.3201/eid1201.051068. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Pang X, Zhu Z, Xu F, Guo J, Gong X, Liu D, et al. Evaluation of control measures implemented in the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Beijing. JAMA. 2003;290:3215–3221. doi: 10.1001/jama.290.24.3215. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Stroud PD, Del Valle SY, Sydoriak SJ, Riese JM, Mniszewski SM. Spatial dynamics of pandemic influenza in a massive artificial society. JASSS. 2007;10(4):9. [Google Scholar]
  17. Tsolia MN, Logotheti I, Papadopooulos NG, Mavrikou M, Spyridis NP, Drossatou P, Kafetzis D, Konstantopoulos A, The Outpatient Flu Study Group Impact of influenza infection in healthy children examined as outpatients and their families. Vaccine. 2006;24(33–34):5970–5976. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2006.05.006. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2005) HHS pandemic influenza plan. Available: http://www.hhs.gov/pandemicflu/plan/pdf/HHSPandemicInfluenzaPlan.pdf. Accessed 20 February 2007
  19. US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2006a) Antivirals—state allocations. Available: http://pandemicflu.gov/plan/states/antivirals.html. Accessed 20 February 2007
  20. US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2006b) School district (K-12) pandemic influenza planning checklist. Available: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/school/schoolchecklist.html. Accessed 21 February 2007
  21. US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2008) Community strategy for pandemic influenza mitigation. Available: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/community/commitigation.html. Accessed 8 February 2008
  22. US Department of Transportation (DOT), Bureau of Transportation Statistics (2003) NHTS 2001 Highlights Report BTS03-05
  23. US Government Accountability Office (GAO) (2004) Flu vaccine: recent supply shortages underscore ongoing challenges. Available: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05177t.pdf. Accessed 21 February 2007
  24. US Homeland Security Council (HSC) (2006) National strategy for pandemic influenza—implementation plan. Available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/nspi_implementation.pdf. Accessed 20 February 2007
  25. US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (2003) Estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population residing in the United States: 1990 to 2000. Available: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/Ill_Report_1211.pdf. Accessed 12 February 2008
  26. Viboud C, Boelle PY, Cauchemez S, Lavenu A, Valleron AJ, Flahault A, Carrat F. Risk factors of influenza transmission in households. Br J Gen Pract. 2004;54:684–689. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Washington Post (2005) US builds stockpile of vaccine for flu pandemic. Available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/29/AR2005112901849.html. Accessed 8 February 2008
  28. Washington Post (2007) CDC issues guidelines for battling flu pandemic. Available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020100850.html. Accessed 8 February 2008
  29. World Health Organization (WHO) (2006) Global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply. Available: http://www.who.int/vaccines-documents/DocsPEF06/863.pdf. Accessed 20 February 2007
  30. World Health Organization (WHO) Writing Group Nonpharmaceutical interventions for pandemic influenza, national and community measures. Emerg Infect Dis. 2006;12:88–94. doi: 10.3201/eid1201.051371. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. Yee D, Bradford J (1999) Employment density study. Canadian METRO Council Technical Report, April 6 1999

Articles from Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory are provided here courtesy of Nature Publishing Group

RESOURCES