We use a simple epidemic model that includes susceptible, infectious, reported, and
recovered classes to model an outbreak of Acute Hemorrhagic Conjunctivitis (AHC). Our
model considers the impact of under-reporting and behavior changes on the transmission
rate and is applied to a recent epidemic of Acute Hemorrhagic Conjunctivitis in Mexico.
Model parameters are estimated from a fit to the cumulative number of cases. Epidemiological parameters are in agreement with those derived from clinical studies. Our model
predicts a “mean time from symptom onset to diagnosis” of 1.43 days (95% CI: 1 − 2.5)
which is consistent with an estimate of 1.55 days (95% CI: 1.46 − 1.63) obtained using
maximum likelihood methods on the distribution of the “times from symptom onset to
diagnosis” of the clinical records of AHC cases reported during the epidemic. Our model
predicts that the final epidemic size was under-reported by 38.68%. We estimate that a
primary infectious case generates approximately 3 secondary cases (R0
= 2.64, SD 0.65).
Furthermore, our model predicts a 36.36% reduction in the transmission rate due to behavior changes which started to be effective 21.90 (SD 0.19) days after the first reported
case. We explore the expected impact of how quickly interventions are implemented and
estimate an approximate of 11 person-years of productivity losses from diagnosed cases.
Our results are in agreement with current public health policy including informing the
population about the presence of the outbreak as quickly as possible, instructing individuals via press releases with public health information on how to avoid contagion, and
encouraging infectious individuals to get diagnosed in hospital clinics.