Analysis of the infection time trom a potential H7N9 influenza pandemic outbreak

Avian influenza viruses have been affecting human populations for a long nine since the outbreak in the year 1580 as the first recorded in history. Since then, other mutations and reassortments of the influenza viruses (e.g., Hl Xl, HSX2) have emerged causing pandemics. Recent emergence ofH7N9 influenza virus in China resulted in 130? laboratory-confirmed cases of human infections causing 489 deaths (37.4%fatalify rate). Researchers have developed early esti-mates of some of the epidemiological parameters to characterize H7X9 virus in China, In this research we examine the distribution that characterizes the time to infection from a potential H7X9 influenza pandemic outbreak using results from an agent-based (.AB) simulation model. The .AB model replicates the dynamics of contacts between susceptibles an infected individuals. We considered some of the common continuous probability distributions and conclude, based on the negative log-likelihood, that the lognormal dis-tribution provides a good fit to characterize the time to be infected.