Risk assessment of Ebola virus disease spreading in Uganda using a two-layer temporal network
Loading...
Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Scientific reports
Abstract
Network-based modelling of infectious diseases apply compartmental models on a contact network,
which makes the epidemic process crucially dependent on the network structure. For highly contagious
diseases such as Ebola virus disease (EVD), interpersonal contact plays the most vital role in humanto-
human transmission. Therefore, for accurate representation of EVD spreading, the contact network
needs to resemble the reality. Prior research has mainly focused on static networks (only permanent
contacts) or activity-driven networks (only temporal contacts) for Ebola spreading. A comprehensive
network for EVD spreading should include both these network structures, as there are always some
permanent contacts together with temporal contacts. Therefore, we propose a two-layer temporal
network for Uganda, which is at risk of an Ebola outbreak from the neighboring Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC) epidemic. The network has a permanent layer representing permanent contacts
among individuals within the family level, and a data-driven temporal network for human movements
motivated by cattle trade, fish trade, or general communications. We propose a Gillespie algorithm
with the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) compartmental model to simulate the evolution of
EVD spreading as well as to evaluate the risk throughout our network. As an example, we applied our
method to a network consisting of 23 districts along different movement routes in Uganda starting
from bordering districts of the DRC to Kampala. Simulation results show that some regions are at
higher risk of infection, suggesting some focal points for Ebola preparedness and providing direction to
inform interventions in the field. Simulation results also show that decreasing physical contact as well
as increasing preventive measures result in a reduction of chances to develop an outbreak. Overall, the
main contribution of this paper lies in the novel method for risk assessment, which can be more precise
with an increasing volume of accurate data for creating the network model.
Description
Keywords
Risk assessment, Ebola virus disease, Uganda, Network
Citation
Riad, M. H., Sekamatte, M., Ocom, F., Makumbi, I., & Scoglio, C. M. (2019). Risk assessment of Ebola virus disease spreading in Uganda using a two-layer temporal network. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-52501-1