Dengue epidemics and human mobility

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2011 Jul;84(1 Pt 1):011901. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011901. Epub 2011 Jul 1.

Abstract

In this work we explore the effects of human mobility on the dispersion of a vector borne disease. We combine an already presented stochastic model for dengue with a simple representation of the daily motion of humans on a schematic city of 20 × 20 blocks with 100 inhabitants in each block. The pattern of motion of the individuals is described in terms of complex networks in which links connect different blocks and the link length distribution is in accordance with recent findings on human mobility. It is shown that human mobility can turn out to be the main driving force of the disease dispersal.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Culicidae
  • Dengue / epidemiology*
  • Dengue / transmission*
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Emigration and Immigration
  • Humans
  • Insect Bites and Stings
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Poisson Distribution
  • Stochastic Processes
  • Temperature