2005 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Scientists present modeling strategies for controlling SARS outbreaks in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences.
According to a study from Canada, "Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a new, highly contagious, viral disease, emerged in China late in 2002 and quickly spread to 32 countries and regions causing in excess of 774 deaths and 8098 infections worldwide. In the absence of a rapid diagnostic test, therapy, or vaccine, isolation of individuals diagnosed with SARS and quarantine of individuals feared exposed to SARS virus were used to control the spread of infection."
"We examine mathematically the impact of isolation and quarantine on the control of SARS during the outbreaks in Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beijing using a deterministic model that closely mimics the data for cumulative infected cases and SARS-related deaths in the first three regions but not in Beijing until mid-April, when China started to report data more accurately," stated Abba B. Gumel at the University of Manitoba and collaborators in Canada. "The results reveal that achieving a reduction in the contact rate between susceptible and diseased individuals by isolating the latter is a critically important strategy that can control SARS outbreaks with or without quarantine."
"An optimal isolation program entails timely implementation under stringent hygienic precautions defined by a critical threshold value," commented the researchers. "Values below this threshold lead to control, but those above are associated with the incidence of new community outbreaks or nosocomial infections, a known cause for the spread of SARS in each region. Allocation of resources to implement optimal isolation is more effective than to implement sub-optimal isolation and quarantine together. A community-wide eradication of SARS is feasible if optimal isolation is combined with a highly effective screening program at the points of entry."
Gumel and associates published the results of their research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences (Modelling strategies for controlling SARS outbreaks. Proc R Soc Lond B