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In 1918 and 1919, more than a half-a-million Americans died in a huge flu pandemic. We've had other flu outbreaks since, and now, illnesses like bird flu and SARS have raised concerns that another pandemic may be coming. Though we can't know for sure when it will hit, or how severe it will be, a new kind of planning tool may help us prepare for the worst.
It happened in 1918 -- a huge flu outbreak that spread worldwide. Could it happen again in our time?
At Georgia Tech's Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, researchers say the threat of a modern pandemic is very real.
Now, operations researchers have developed a mathematical model that uses
’s census data, to track a pandemic before it actually hits.
This model can predict when and where the pandemic would spread. The darker the red, the more people infected.
The model can also be used for distributing food and vaccine, so providers can plan ahead.
Understanding a pandemic before it hits -- it could help ensure we all get the help and medicine we need to survive.
Predicting a pandemic
What is the flu: the flu is caused by the influenza virus, which targets the respiratory tract by binding to the surface of cells. Then the virus releases its genetic information (RNA) into the cell's nucleus to replicate itself. When the cell dies, those copies are released into the body, infecting other cells. Flu symptoms are unpleasant, but usually not life-threatening by themselves; however, the flu weakens the immune system, making the body vulnerable to more serious infections, such as pneumonia.
Pandemic panic: being able to determine the specific influenza strain in a sample may help world health officials combat future flu epidemics and pandemics. Strain identification is critical for tracking emerging strains and determining which flu strains are most likely to infect the population the following year in order to develop annual preventive vaccines. Historically, flu pandemics occur when a new strain of the flu virus emerges that is particularly contagious. They can cause millions of deaths worldwide, ranking a flu pandemic among the top four global risks listed by the world economic forum.
The American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
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