BACKGROUND Seasonal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) epidemics occur annually in temperate climates and result in significant pediatric morbidity and increased health care costs. Although RSV epidemics generally occur between October and April, the size and timing vary across epidemic seasons and are difficult to predict accurately. Prediction of epidemic characteristics would support manageme...

Understanding the biology behind the epidemicity and persistence of Acinetobacter baumannii in the hospital environment is critical to control outbreaks of infection. This study investigated the contributing factors to the epidemicity of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB) sequence type (ST) 191 by comparing the differences in biofilm formation, expression of biofilm-associated genes, and ...

Many realistic epidemic networks display statistically synchronous behavior which we will refer to as epidemic synchronization. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no theoretical study of epidemic synchronization. In fact, in many cases, synchronization and epidemic behavior can arise simultaneously and interplay adaptively. In this paper, we first construct mathematical model...

Since the first clinical description by Vieusseux (1805) of the epidemic form of meningitis known today as cerebrospinal meningitis, numerous epidemic outbreaks of the disease were reported globally during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Historical medical data confirmed that clinical disease may occur either sporadically or in an epidemic form. Moreover, it may afflict children, yo...

it is estimated that one third of the world's population is latently infected with tuberculosis (tb). the hiv epidemic fuels the tb epidemic by increasing the risk of reactivation of latent tb infection and by facilitating a more rapid progression of tb disease. although the incidence of tb is constant or decreasing in many regions of the world, rates remain high in developing countries as a co...