Behavioural response in educated young adults towards influenza A(H1N1)pdm09.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to determine how contact behaviour change influences the indoor transmission of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 among school children. We incorporated transmission rate matrices constructed from questionnaire responses into an epidemiological model to simulate contact behaviour change during an influenza epidemic. We constructed a dose-response model describing the relationships between contact rate, viral load, and respiratory symptom scores using published experimental human infection data for A(H1N1)pdm09. Findings showed that that mean numbers of contacts were 5.66 ± 6.23 and 1.96 ± 2.76 d-1 in the 13-19 and 40-59 years age groups, respectively. We found that the basic reproduction number (R 0) was <1 during weekends in pandemic periods, implying that school closures or class suspensions are probably an effective social distancing policy to control pandemic influenza transmission. We conclude that human contact behaviour change is a potentially influential factor on influenza infection rates. For substantiation of this effect, we recommend a future study with more comprehensive control measures.