Epidemiology Infectious Disease Exercise
? You will work on this exercise alone.
? Watch the movie, Contagion (directed by Steven Soderbergh, released in 2011).
? Read the article, Trial by Ebola (written by Bryan Burrough in Vanity Fair magazine, February 2015), which is posted on MOODLE.
? Respond to the questions/tasks below.
? Your responses to the questions and/or tasks will be drawn from the movie, Vanity Fair article, textbook, lecture notes and/or other epidemiology-related sources. Information retrieved from ‘other epidemiology-related sources' must be cited using American Medical Association citation format.
? Answer the following questions in question-answer format (list question then write answer).
? All responses must be typed using 12-point font.
? PROOFREAD (make sure your name is on the paper)
? UPLOAD your completed exercise on MOODLE by 12:00pm on Wednesday, April 13, 2016
QUESTIONS:
1. Describe the type of surveillance being conducted by the World Health Organization epidemiologists in Geneva who were taking calls from all over the world about new cases in the movie Contagion.
2. Describe the type of surveillance being conducted by Emily Hall in the Vanity Fair article.
3. Define, compare and contrast the similarities and differences between an index, primary, secondary and tertiary case in infectious disease transmission.
4. Describe which character was the index case in the movie and why.
5. Describe which character was the primary case in the movie and why.
6. Identify the possible reservoir(s) for the infectious agent (MEV-1) in the movie.
7. Identify the possible mode(s) of transmission for the MEV-1 virus depicted in the movie. Are these modes through contact or non-contact? Direct or indirect? Explain your answers.
8. What was the estimated R0 value for the MEV-1 virus depicted in the movie? Describe the meaning of this R0 value.
9. From an epidemiologic perspective, describe the biggest challenges presented by the MEV-1 virus in the movie. Compare and contrast these challenges with those observed for the Ebola virus outbreak in Dallas as depicted in the Vanity Fair article.
10. From an epidemiologic perspective, describe several control measures that could have been put in place to minimize the impact of the MEV-1 virus in the movie and the Ebola virus in the article.
11. Describe any potential ethical violations portrayed in the movie. Suggest how these ethical violations could have been avoided.
12. Describe any potential ethical violations during the Ebola outbreak in Dallas (as depicted in the Vanity Fair article). Suggest how these ethical violations could have been avoided.
13. What "epidemiology-related" thoughts and/or comments do you have after seeing the movie and reading the article in light of your new knowledge of outbreak investigations?