DengueME: A Tool for the Modeling and Simulation of Dengue Spatiotemporal Dynamics

Authored by de Lima Tiago Franca Melo, Raquel Martins Lana, Senna Carneiro Tiago Garcia de, Claudia Torres Codeco, Gabriel Souza Machado, Lucas Saraiva Ferreira, Castro Medeiros Liliam Cesar de, Junior Clodoveu Augusto Davis

Date Published: 2016

DOI: 10.3390/ijerph13090920

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: TerraML

Model Documentation: Other Narrative

Model Code URLs: https://github.com/ufopleds/DengueME

Abstract

The prevention and control of dengue are great public health challenges for many countries, particularly since 2015, as other arboviruses have been observed to interact significantly with dengue virus. Different approaches and methodologies have been proposed and discussed by the research community. An important tool widely used is modeling and simulation, which help us to understand epidemic dynamics and create scenarios to support planning and decision making processes. With this aim, we proposed and developed DengueME, a collaborative open source platform to simulate dengue disease and its vector's dynamics. It supports compartmental and individual-based models, implemented over a GIS database, that represent Aedes aegypti population dynamics, human demography, human mobility, urban landscape and dengue transmission mediated by human and mosquito encounters. A user-friendly graphical interface was developed to facilitate model configuration and data input, and a library of models was developed to support teaching-learning activities. DengueME was applied in study cases and evaluated by specialists. Other improvements will be made in future work, to enhance its extensibility and usability.

Tags

Aedes-aegypti Public-health Human movement Rio-de-janeiro Virus transmission Vector-borne diseases Life-history traits Population biology Global distribution Diptera-culicidae