In the recent literature, other models, both stochastic and deterministic, of smallpox outbreaks have been introduced to analyze the effects of ring and mass vaccination (8, 10 – 10 ).
Here we analyze publicly available microarray data to further understand survival of smallpox infected macaques, using systems biology approaches.
In a systematic review designed to provide an understanding of smallpox transmission patterns, we identified and analyzed what were effectively 51 smallpox outbreaks from post-1945 Europe and North America.
The group was charged with developing models of smallpox spread and the potential effects of several types of interventions, in several attack scenarios, to help analyze a range of options.
Finally, the individual-based model by Epstein et al. [ 16] presented scenarios illustrating certain alternatives to pure mass vaccination and ring vaccination of contacts of cases in preventing smallpox transmission in small populations of 800 individuals; this model includes no homogeneity assumptions, but did not analyze tracing of contacts of contacts.
In mid-nineteenth century England, William Farr, one of the founders of modern epidemiology, analyzed mortality rates attributed to a smallpox outbreak and derived a "law of epidemics" from the observed patterns, postulating that the dynamics of epidemic outbreaks generally follow a symmetric curve (Farr [1840]).
T-cell reactivity was analyzed after recent (<2 years ago) smallpox vaccinations, in long-term vaccinated (>20 years ago) and not vaccinated persons.
In the present work we analyzed a dataset derived from monkeys infected by smallpox, published by Rubins et al [ 1].
BioWatch uses vacuum-powered samplers that suck air through composite filters, which are removed daily and analyzed at public health labs for signs of anthrax, smallpox, plague or other deadly pathogens.
Although terrorist use of smallpox in the 21st century may have substantially different epidemiological characteristics (see discussion below), the outbreaks analyzed in this paper are the closest actual population experience that may help partially guide modern smallpox control efforts.
As a control we analyzed intermediate cases (results not shown) and four examples of real infections (influenza, SARS, smallpox, and foot-and-mouth disease), of which the parameter values are listed in Table 2.
