Covid19Vaxplorer: A free, online, user-friendly COVID-19 vaccine allocation comparison tool.

There are many COVID-19 vaccines currently available, however, Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) still have large proportions of their populations unvaccinated. Decision-makers must decide how to effectively allocate available vaccines (e.g. boosters or primary series vaccination, which age groups to target) but LMIC often lack the resources to undergo quantitative analyses of vaccine allocation, resulting in ad-hoc policies. We developed Covid19Vaxplorer (https://covid19vaxplorer.fredhutch.org/), a free, user-friendly online tool that simulates region-specific COVID-19 epidemics in conjunction with vaccination with the purpose of providing public health officials worldwide with a tool for vaccine allocation planning and comparison. We developed an age-structured mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 vaccination. The model considers vaccination with up to three different vaccine products, primary series and boosters. We simulated partial immunity derived from waning of natural infection and vaccination. The model is embedded in an online tool, Covid19Vaxplorer that was optimized for its ease of use. By prompting users to fill information through several windows to input local parameters (e.g. cumulative and current prevalence), epidemiological parameters (e.g basic reproduction number, current social distancing interventions), vaccine parameters (e.g. vaccine efficacy, duration of immunity) and vaccine allocation (both by age groups and by vaccination status). Covid19Vaxplorer connects the user to the mathematical model and simulates, in real time, region-specific epidemics. The tool then produces key outcomes including expected numbers of deaths, hospitalizations and cases, with the possibility of simulating several scenarios of vaccine allocation at once for a side-by-side comparison. We provide two usage examples of Covid19Vaxplorer for vaccine allocation in Haiti and Afghanistan, which had as of Spring 2023, 2% and 33% of their populations vaccinated, and show that for these particular examples, using available vaccine as primary series vaccinations prevents more deaths than using them as boosters.

Covid19Vaxplorer: a free, online, user-friendly COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation Comparison Tool.

Background: There are many COVID-19 vaccines currently available, however, Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) still have large proportions of their populations unvaccinated. Decision-makers must decide how to effectively allocate available vaccines (e.g. boosters or primary series vaccination, which age groups to target) but LMIC often lack the resources to undergo quantitative analyses of vaccine allocation, resulting in ad-hoc policies. We developed Covid19Vaxplorer (https://covid19vaxplorer.fredhutch.org/), a free, user-friendly online tool that simulates region-specific COVID-19 epidemics in conjunction with vaccination with the purpose of providing public health officials worldwide with a tool for vaccine allocation planning and comparison. Methods: We developed an age-structured mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 vaccination. The model considers vaccination with up to three different vaccine products, primary series and boosters. We simulated partial immunity derived from waning of natural infection and vaccination. The model is embedded in an online tool, Covid19Vaxplorer that was optimized for its ease of use. By prompting users to fill information through several windows to input local parameters (e.g. cumulative and current prevalence), epidemiological parameters (e.g basic reproduction number, current social distancing interventions), vaccine parameters (e.g. vaccine efficacy, duration of immunity) and vaccine allocation (both by age groups and by vaccination status). Covid19Vaxplorer connects the user to the mathematical model and simulates, in real time, region-specific epidemics. The tool then produces key outcomes including expected numbers of deaths, hospitalizations and cases, with the possibility of simulating several scenarios of vaccine allocation at once for a side-by-side comparison. Results: We provide two usage examples of Covid19Vaxplorer for vaccine allocation in Haiti and Afghanistan, which had as of Spring 2023 2% and 33% of their populations vaccinated, and show that for these particular examples, using available vaccine as primary series vaccinations prevents more deaths than using them as boosters. Covid19Vaxplorer allows users in 183 regions in the world to compare several vaccination strategies simultaneously, adjusting parameters to their local epidemics, infrastructure and logistics. Covid19Vaxplorer is an online, free, user-friendly tool that facilitates evidence-based decision making for vaccine distribution.

A modified Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model for observed under-reported incidence data.

Fitting Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) models to incidence data is problematic when not all infected individuals are reported. Assuming an underlying SIR model with general but known distribution for the time to recovery, this paper derives the implied differential-integral equations for observed incidence data when a fixed fraction of newly infected individuals are not observed. The parameters of the resulting system of differential equations are identifiable. Using these differential equations, we develop a stochastic model for the conditional distribution of current disease incidence given the entire past history of reported cases. We estimate the model parameters using Bayesian Markov Chain Monte-Carlo sampling of the posterior distribution. We use our model to estimate the transmission rate and fraction of asymptomatic individuals for the current Coronavirus 2019 outbreak in eight American Countries: the United States of America, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Panama, from January 2020 to May 2021. Our analysis reveals that the fraction of reported cases varies across all countries. For example, the reported incidence fraction for the United States of America varies from 0.3 to 0.6, while for Brazil it varies from 0.2 to 0.4.

Insights into pathological mechanisms and interventions revealed by analyzing a mathematical model for cone metabolism.

This work analyzes a mathematical model for the metabolic dynamics of a cone photoreceptor, which is the first model to account for energy generation from fatty acids oxidation of shed photoreceptor outer segments (POS). Multiple parameter bifurcation analysis shows that joint variations in external glucose, the efficiency of glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1), lipid utilization for POS renewal, and oxidation of fatty acids affect the cone's metabolic vitality and its capability to adapt under glucose-deficient conditions. The analysis further reveals that when glucose is scarce, cone viability cannot be sustained by only fueling energy production in the mitochondria, but it also requires supporting anabolic processes to create lipids necessary for cell maintenance and repair. In silico experiments are used to investigate how the duration of glucose deprivation impacts the cell without and with a potential GLUT1 or oxidation of fatty acids intervention as well as a dual intervention. The results show that for prolonged duration of glucose deprivation, the cone metabolic system does not recover with higher oxidation of fatty acids and requires greater effectiveness of GLUT1 to recover. Finally, time-varying global sensitivity analysis (GSA) is applied to assess the sensitivity of the model outputs of interest to changes and uncertainty in the parameters at specific times. The results reveal a critical temporal window where there would be more flexibility for interventions to rescue a cone cell from the detrimental consequences of glucose shortage.