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Modeling Super-Spreading Events For Sars, Thembinkosi P. Mkhatshwa

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

One of the intriguing characteristics of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemics was the occurrence of super spreading events (SSEs). Super-spreading events for a specific infectious disease occur when infected individuals infect more than the average number of secondary cases. The understanding of these SSEs is critical to under- standing the spread of SARS. In this thesis, we present a modification of the basic SIR (Susceptible - Infected - Removed) disease model, an SIPR (Susceptible - Regular Infected - Super-spreader - Removed) model, which captures the effect of the SSEs.