Modelling COVID-19 transmission: from data to intervention
The speed and scope of detection of an infectious disease, in particular, timely identification and reporting of a new pathogen, is a major indicator of a country’s ability to control infectious diseases. Findings of the Global Health Security (GHS) index
suggest that only 19% of countries have the ability to quickly detect and report epidemics of potential international concern, fewer than 5% of countries can rapidly respond to and mitigate the spread of an epidemic, and no country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics. Experience with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) seems to have confirmed these findings.
InĀ The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Rene Niehus and colleagues
report a modelling approach with which they assessed the relative capacity for detection of imported cases of COVID-19 globally, and the prevalence of this disease among international travellers, and used these data to estimate cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, from where the epidemic was first reported.