Rabies is endemic in some regions of Thailand, where dogs are the most common reservoir of the virus. One of regular ways to control the disease is to perform a mass vaccination. However, such operations cannot be fully effective due to the need of a large area of operation protocol, where an infected dog is difficult to be tracked. Therefore, this paper is to propose a rabies epidemic simulation system, estimating an epidemic area. Rabies transmissions are modeled, following the SEIR model. Dog behavior and epidemic area are calculated using a normal distribution technique, with a probabilistic model calculated from environmental factors. Epidemic areas from 6 outbreaks in Ta-Chang, Khlong-Ree, Kuan-Lung, Tung-Tam-Sao and 2 outbreaks in Tung-Wang, are evaluated in three aspects including shapes, sizes and infected case coverage percentage. The evaluations show that the result from Klong-Ree area is the only one that expands into the unreachable area. The second outbreak epidemic results of Klong-Ree and Tung-Wang give a larger radius of 3.25 km and 3.18 km respectively, when compared to the standard vaccination radius of 3 km. Lastly, the first outbreak result of Tung Wang is the only one that cannot cover other rabies report cases. In summary, the developed simulation has around a 1.29% chance to generate the epidemic in the unreachable area. The average epidemic radius is about 2.52 km or 84% of the standard guideline. The average accuracy of the simulation which is measured from coverage percentage is approximately 83%.
Keywords
Coverage area forecasting, Epidemic simulation, Probabilistic model, Rabies simulation