Modelling tool for faster pandemic analysis

Washington, Dec 15 (ANI): American scientists are developing a mathematical and visual analytic toolkit to quicken the diagnoses of pandemics and create better ways of dealing with them.

The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has come up with a Pandemic Influenza Planning Tool to simulate the spread of a disease across various age groups and geographic populations. It also helps decision-makers to review the advantages of the decisions they take for different scenarios in advance.

Robert Brigantic, PNNL operations research scientist, said: "No single approach provides an optimal strategy when battling the spread of a pandemic.... But, the use of this tool can allow health officials to more accurately predict how a disease might evolve when various mitigation strategies are applied."

The conclusions could be very helpful in the development of an effective preventive strategy and deciding the optimal use of the limited resources.

Brigantic's tool enables officials to easily access possible response options by manipulating modeling parameters and running various simulations. (ANI)