title: Critical role of nosocomial transmission in the toronto sars outbreak.
abstract: We develop a compartmental mathematical model to address the role of hospitals in severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS ) transmission dynamics, which partially explains the heterogeneity of the epidemic. Comparison of the effects of two major policies, strict hospital infection control procedures and community-wide quarantine measures, implemented in Toronto two weeks into the initial outbreak, shows that their combination is the key to short-term containment and that quarantine is the key to long-term containment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, 1326 Stevenson Center, Nashville, TN 37240-0001. glenn.f.webb@vanderbilt.edu.
authors.forename: Glenn F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Webb
authors.forename: Martin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Blaser
authors.forename: Huaiping
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Sten
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ardal
authors.forename: Jianhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu