We used a simulation-based model of viral transmission to test the impact of different intervention measures for the control of COVID-19. The use of an antiviral drug, in combination with contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, results in a significant decrease of the mean final size and the peak incidence of local outbreaks of COVID-19, provided delays in contact tracing are small. Integrating antiviral drugs together with contact tracing and quarantine is predicted through this model to be an effective tool for the control of local outbreaks of COVID-19. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.19.20038182v1  

European countries are facing enormous pressure on their healthcare systems as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide a real time overview of the relative pressure on healthcare systems by analyzing the proportion of COVID-19 related deaths and COVID-19 active cases relative to the number of hospital beds, number of medical doctors, and healthcare expenditure, in European countries. More info at www.covid-hcpressure.org

The cost-effectiveness results of typhoid vaccination for 73 Gavi-eligible countries are now available online on Take on Typhoid. The website shows the disease and economic burden of each country, as well as the impact of different typhoid vaccination strategies. The study was published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Elise Kuylen went to the European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (ESCAIDE) to present her work on measles transmission. Tapiwa Ganyani, Pietro Coletti and Lander Willem went to the 7th International Conference on Infectious Diseases Dynamics (Epidemics) to promote ongoing work on overdispersion, flu and RSV. Both conferences were a succes! (more…)

Dr. Sereina Herzog won the ISCB poster award for her poster presentation "Estimating the force of infection and incidence using routine data affected by outcome dependent sampling" at the 40th Annual Conference of the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics.  

Members of SIMID are be present at the 40th Annual Conference of the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics in Leuven from July 14-17, 2019. We are happy to promote our work and to meet other researchers in the field. Discover our contributions on our Dissemination & Awards page.

We are happy to announce the 8th SIMID course on “Infectious Disease Modelling and Health Economic Evaluation of Vaccines” for people who want to expand their modelling toolbox and understanding of cost-effectiveness analysis when it is applied to vaccines. The 5 day course in Antwerp, Belgium, will include many tutorials in R and MS Excel. (more…)