Abstract: When controlling an emerging outbreak of an infectious disease, it is essential to know the key epidemiological parameters, such as the basic reproduction number R 0 and the control effort required to prevent a large outbreak. These parameters are estimated from the observed incidence of new cases and information about the infectious contact structures of the population in which the disease spreads. However, the relevant infectious contact structures for new, emerging infections are often unknown or hard to obtain. Here, we show that, for many ...
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Topics: 
Econometrics
Statistics