The Effect of the Number of Quarantine Officers and

Vaccination onChanges in Death Rate in an

Outbreak of Smallpox

Joe Fetsch

Purpose

While smallpox has been eradicated, reserves remain in case of an outbreak to use as a

vaccine. If Variola Major was released on a population, many fatalities would result if

effective measures were not taken.If this was done on a wider scale, resources

may be spread too thin to handle the situation effectively – purpose is to quantify

this minimum amount for control of an outbreak

Explanation of Purpose

This project is intended to determine the effects of quarantine officers and immunization on the death rate of a given population of agents in

which an outbreak of Variola occurs in a closed world scenario where agents are

allowed to move randomly.

Other Projects

Several government simulations involving Smallpox taking other variables into account

have taken place, but no project has accounted for a limited supply of

vaccinations and manpowerSeveral programs have accounted for

vaccination or quarantine, but few involve both and none involve alternate supplies of

these resources

NetLogo Use

NetLogo was used to develop a basic understanding of the disease modeling system, but will not be used to create the smallpox model

NetLogo Virus Model

Smallpox

Much research was done to fully understand the Variola virus in all forms and its effects on a population

Child suffering from Smallpox

Each dot represents an Agent with a vision, intelligence, and a value describing the stage in which the disease progresses

The disease has not yet been implemented, plan is to do this 2nd and 3rd quarters

Project Structure The infection, after

Prodrome phase, will then progress into a more mature phase:

Ordinary Modified Malignant Hemorrhaging Variola Minor

Agent Movement

The agents move in a fashion that accounts for the human instinct to avoid those covered in pustules and move towards those deemed to be able to provide protection or information

Away from infected and towards officers

This still maintains an element of randomness to account for ignorance often expressed in a human population even in case of peril

Movement Cont'd

The agent movement will be affected by the quarantine officers who would direct them to safety or to an immunization site, determined by the officer as whichever has the greater value and practicality based on the location of the agents at the time.

This can be used to help realize the maximum effectivity of a limited supply of quarantine officers and vaccination on a closed population in order to reduce the death rate of the population in which the outbreak takes place.

Visual Representation

Green agents are healthy Yellow agents are in early

stage where not contagious or visible

Red agents are infected, contagious and visible

Blue agents are immune Black agents are

quarantine officers – they cannot become infected

Sugarscape-based model

Timeline

Research Smallpox to understand disease in order to better implement in program

Using NetLogo, obtained a basic understanding of the model of infection

Using Python, created basic model with agents and a 1-D vision and movement range to affect the influenced movement provided by the infected agents and quarantine officers

Changes in Plan Over time, while

developing a full realization of the scale of the project, goal has been cut from a full simulation of the United States under such an outbreak to a localized area for practical purposes

www.epa.gov

No Testing

Because of the time invested into research, project has not progressed to the point where results can be drawn or a full simulation can be run.

Man suffering from hemorrhagic smallpox also known as black pox