The Infectious Disease Model

Over the past years, scientists from different fields, extending from medicine and biology to applied mathematics and computer science, have teamed up to assess emerging diseases. Mathematical modelling plays an important role in predicting, forecasting and controlling disease outbreaks. Despite control measures, it often happens that outbreaks remain a serious public health risk in areas where recurrent outbreaks have been observed for a long time. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the effectiveness of the control intervention of diseases using mathematical modelling, especially for those such as Ebola virus for which no specific treatment or vaccine exists. Researchers have studied and applied numerous models and algorithms for the different types of disease outbreaks. One of the models that is widely used in the infectious disease model is the susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model, also called the compartmental model, is often used …show more content…
Two years after, the Chowell et al. research publication, Lekone and Finkenstadt at the University of Warwick have modified the model of Chowell et al. for discrete-time and stochastic progression at Ebola as a case study. Lekone and Finkenstadt concluded that their model can be used by epidemiologists to study the disease and the effectiveness of control interventions. In this critical analysis paper, I will provide the summary of this research paper and identify strengths and weaknesses, and provide evaluative comments. I will summarize the literature titled “Statistical Inference in a Stochastic Epidemic SEIR Model with Control Intervention: Ebola as a Case Study” and published by Lekone and Finkenstadt on Biometrics journal in 2006. I will identify its strengths and weaknesses and provide evaluative