Pandemic influenza in Papua New Guinea: a modelling study comparison with pandemic spread in a developed country

Milne, George J; Baskaran, Pravin; Halder, Nilimesh; Karl, Stephan; Kelso, Joel

The contact network consists of households and schools, further education, workplace and community contact hubs, as indicated in the schematic in Figure 1 . Each household contains uniquely identified individuals and children are assigned by an allocation algorithm to school classes, and adults to workplaces according to age, using field data which gives class and workplace numbers. The field survey revealed that 50% of school-age children do not attend school, and this percentage is thought to be similar to most urban areas in PNG, with still lower rates in rural areas. Of those not attending school 50% are allocated to neighbourhood hubs, as described below. In addition to contact occurring in households and mixing hubs, community contact is introduced to capture mixing which occurs outwith these locales and in the wider community and occurs at a fixed rate, as with the Albany model.