View from Science and Modeling

In this talk, I summarize the process of estimating important transmission parameters and building statistical and mathematical models for the transmission and control of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009.  This activity began immediately after notice of spread of the virus in Mexico and California in April, 2009.  The time and accuracy of the estimates of the transmission parameters, natural history parameters, and pathogenicity and severity indexes will be reviewed.  We will describe how statistical and mathematical models were used to project the likely spread of the pandemic and the effectiveness and timing of control strategies.   A description will be given of how mathematical models were used to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical interventions.  We will pay particular attention to vaccination strategies, concentrating on when vaccine arrived with respect to the timing of the epidemics in various locals in the US.  With the vaccine arriving late, we will describe what information analytic methods provided for the tradeoff between vaccinating high spreading or high risk people first.  We will put the mathematical modeling and analysis in context with the current post-pandemic spread of seasonal influenza during the 2010 – 2011 influenza season in the US.  Future plans will be discussed for integrating mathematical and statistical modeling of infectious disease spread and control with local and national level infectious disease control efforts.