title: New coronavirus outbreak. Lessons learned from the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic.
abstract: System dynamics approach offers great potential for addressing how intervention policies can affect the spread of emerging infectious diseases in complex and highly networked systems. Here, we develop a model that explains the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) epidemic that occurred in Hong Kong in 2003. The dynamic model developed with system dynamics methodology included 23 variables (five states, four flows, eight auxiliary variables, six parameters), five differential equations and 12 algebraic equations. The parameters were optimized following an iterative process of simulation to fit the real data from the epidemics. Univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses were performed to determine the reliability of the model. In addition, we discuss how further testing using this model can inform community interventions to reduce the risk in current and future outbreaks, such as the recently Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) epidemic.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa,Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas,Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (CSIC-UAM),Madrid,Spain.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Álvarez
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health,School of Medicine,Universidad Autónoma de Madrid/IdiPAZ,Madrid,Spain.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Donado-Campos
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Informática y Automática,ETSI Informática,Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia UNED,Madrid,Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Morilla
mesh_terms: D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000453:epidemiology; D018352:Coronavirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D045169:Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology*
keywords: Emerging infections; MERS-CoV; SARS-CoV; epidemics; modelling