Simulating the Spread of Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 Considering the Effect of the First World War

TL;DR

This paper models the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic by integrating local SEIR dynamics with global network connections, analyzing the impact of World War I military traffic on its spread across countries.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid modeling approach combining SEIR and network models to simulate pandemic spread considering wartime traffic influences.

Findings

War significantly affected pandemic spread in heavily involved countries.

Simulation shows reduced infections when military traffic is eliminated.

The model reproduces historical pandemic patterns across 12 countries.

Abstract

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, also called Spanish Flu Pandemic, was one of the severest pandemics in history. It is thought that the First World War much influenced the spread of the pandemic. In this paper, we model the pandemic considering both civil and military traffic. We propose a hybrid model to determine how the pandemic spread through the world. Our approach considers both the SEIR-based model for local areas and the network model for global connection between countries. First, we reproduce the situation in 12 countries. Then, we simulate another scenario: there was no military traffic during the pandemic, to determine the influence of the influenced of the war on the pandemic. By considering the simulation results, we find that the influence of the war varies in countries; in countries which were deeply involved in the war, the infections were much influenced by the war, while in countries which were not much engaged in the war, the infections were not influenced by the war.