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A unified approach to the distribution of total size and total area under the trajectory of infectives in epidemic models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2016

Frank Ball*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
*
Postal address: Department of Mathematics, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.

Abstract

We provide a unified probabilistic approach to the distribution of total size and total area under the trajectory of infectives for a general stochastic epidemic with any specified distribution of the infectious period. The key tool is a Wald&s identity for the epidemic process. The generalisation of our results to epidemics spreading amongst a heterogeneous population is straightforward.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1986 

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