Table 1.

Sensitivity of differential diagnosis to four different variables.

Key variables	Baseline assumption	Sensitivity of diagnosis to the increase in assumed value	How sensitive within assumed parameter range?
Growth rate of infection	Exponential growth or endemic steady state	(Unrealistically) large increase in the growth rate results in increase in the posterior probability of influenza	Little impact
Duration of travel	5 days	Longer travel yields smaller posterior probability of influenza	Moderate impact
Prior probability of influenza	50%	Greater prior probability of influenza yields greater posterior probability of influenza	High impact
R0 of MERS (yielding the growth rate)	0.63	Greater transmissibility of MERS yields greater posterior probability of influenza	Little impact