PREDICTION OF PANDEMIC A/H1N1 2009 IN ALBANIA

Mathematical modeling of infectious diseases is a way of supplementing traditional surveillance to forecast future events, including future influenza activity. It is a helpful tool to understand the speed and impact of pandemic and to plan for better countermeasure against pandemic. The aim of the study was to project the pandemic wave in the country to describe what would happen under certain assumptions and hypotheses. We developed a population stochastic compartmental SEIR (susceptible-exposed-infectious recovered)-model of pandemic influenza A/H1N1pdm transmission in Albania. Based on the best-fit transmission probability in the total population of the country we estimated the possible future outbreak scenario. As our initial state, we take one infected cases and the total country population as susceptible individuals. Some of the parameters used are natural history, R0, period when the patient is infectious, rate and infectiousness of asymptomatic patients etc. From the first July 2009, theoretically and in the absence of intervention influenza cases start to increase toward the end of November. The figure shows prediction results over the whole course of the pandemic, and its predicted peak would be reached on the 10 February 2010. The number of patients was estimated to reach 126000 at the peak. Mathematical models based on epidemiologic data can provide estimates around the risk of transmission. Reducing contact with infected individuals, prevents outbreaks of influenza.