Estimation and application of case fatality rate, using the summarizing data

Abstract

To evaluate five methods in the estimation on the rate of case fatality during the epidemics of diseases based on the summarizing data. Case fatality rates, derived from the simulation data, 2003 SARS epidemic data in Hong Kong, Singapore Beijing and the 2013 H7N9 epidemic data in mainland China were analyzed, using these 5 methods. Results from the simulation analysis discovered that the relative errors and the standard deviations of the Chen [7, 8] (method 3), Chen [9] (method 4)were minor with high accuracy. Data from the analysis on 2003 SARS epidemic was noticed that the estimation from method 3, 4 in Hong Kong and Singapore both showing high veracities. Since the case fatality rate reported in Beijing was not a constant value, method 5 showed low accuracy even though it was close to the final case fatality rate. Data from the 2013 H7N9 epidemic showed that the estimations of method 1, 2, 3, 4 were all higher than that in the method 5, suggesting that method 3, 4 could be used to estimate the case fatality rates of epidemics more precisely.