Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage
Abstract Background Most mass gathering events have been suspended due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. However, with vaccination rollout, whether and how to organize some of these mass gathering events arises as part of the pandemic recovery discussions, and this calls for decision support tools. The Ha...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:49ade6295783472db4f6fc9128d4cc0d 2023-05-15T15:13:22+02:00 Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage Mohammadali Tofighi Ali Asgary Ghassem Tofighi Mahdi M. Najafabadi Julien Arino Amine Amiche Ashrafur Rahman Zachary McCarthy Nicola Luigi Bragazzi Edward Thommes Laurent Coudeville Martin David Grunnill Lydia Bourouiba Jianhong Wu 2022-09-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 https://doaj.org/article/49ade6295783472db4f6fc9128d4cc0d EN eng BMC https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 https://doaj.org/toc/2055-0936 doi:10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 2055-0936 https://doaj.org/article/49ade6295783472db4f6fc9128d4cc0d Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines, Vol 8, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2022) Social Contacts Mass gathering Hajj Disease Transmission Agent-Based Simulation COVID-19 Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 2022-12-30T23:37:06Z Abstract Background Most mass gathering events have been suspended due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. However, with vaccination rollout, whether and how to organize some of these mass gathering events arises as part of the pandemic recovery discussions, and this calls for decision support tools. The Hajj, one of the world's largest religious gatherings, was substantively scaled down in 2020 and 2021 and it is still unclear how it will take place in 2022 and subsequent years. Simulating disease transmission dynamics during the Hajj season under different conditions can provide some insights for better decision-making. Most disease risk assessment models require data on the number and nature of possible close contacts between individuals. Methods We sought to use integrated agent-based modeling and discrete events simulation techniques to capture risky contacts among the pilgrims and assess different scenarios in one of the Hajj major sites, namely Masjid-Al-Haram. Results The simulation results showed that a plethora of risky contacts may occur during the rituals. Also, as the total number of pilgrims increases at each site, the number of risky contacts increases, and physical distancing measures may be challenging to maintain beyond a certain number of pilgrims in the site. Conclusions This study presented a simulation tool that can be relevant for the risk assessment of a variety of (respiratory) infectious diseases, in addition to COVID-19 in the Hajj season. This tool can be expanded to include other contributing elements of disease transmission to quantify the risk of the mass gathering events. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Haram ENVELOPE(6.445,6.445,62.599,62.599) Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines 8 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Social Contacts Mass gathering Hajj Disease Transmission Agent-Based Simulation COVID-19 Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 |
spellingShingle |
Social Contacts Mass gathering Hajj Disease Transmission Agent-Based Simulation COVID-19 Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Mohammadali Tofighi Ali Asgary Ghassem Tofighi Mahdi M. Najafabadi Julien Arino Amine Amiche Ashrafur Rahman Zachary McCarthy Nicola Luigi Bragazzi Edward Thommes Laurent Coudeville Martin David Grunnill Lydia Bourouiba Jianhong Wu Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage |
topic_facet |
Social Contacts Mass gathering Hajj Disease Transmission Agent-Based Simulation COVID-19 Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 |
description |
Abstract Background Most mass gathering events have been suspended due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. However, with vaccination rollout, whether and how to organize some of these mass gathering events arises as part of the pandemic recovery discussions, and this calls for decision support tools. The Hajj, one of the world's largest religious gatherings, was substantively scaled down in 2020 and 2021 and it is still unclear how it will take place in 2022 and subsequent years. Simulating disease transmission dynamics during the Hajj season under different conditions can provide some insights for better decision-making. Most disease risk assessment models require data on the number and nature of possible close contacts between individuals. Methods We sought to use integrated agent-based modeling and discrete events simulation techniques to capture risky contacts among the pilgrims and assess different scenarios in one of the Hajj major sites, namely Masjid-Al-Haram. Results The simulation results showed that a plethora of risky contacts may occur during the rituals. Also, as the total number of pilgrims increases at each site, the number of risky contacts increases, and physical distancing measures may be challenging to maintain beyond a certain number of pilgrims in the site. Conclusions This study presented a simulation tool that can be relevant for the risk assessment of a variety of (respiratory) infectious diseases, in addition to COVID-19 in the Hajj season. This tool can be expanded to include other contributing elements of disease transmission to quantify the risk of the mass gathering events. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Mohammadali Tofighi Ali Asgary Ghassem Tofighi Mahdi M. Najafabadi Julien Arino Amine Amiche Ashrafur Rahman Zachary McCarthy Nicola Luigi Bragazzi Edward Thommes Laurent Coudeville Martin David Grunnill Lydia Bourouiba Jianhong Wu |
author_facet |
Mohammadali Tofighi Ali Asgary Ghassem Tofighi Mahdi M. Najafabadi Julien Arino Amine Amiche Ashrafur Rahman Zachary McCarthy Nicola Luigi Bragazzi Edward Thommes Laurent Coudeville Martin David Grunnill Lydia Bourouiba Jianhong Wu |
author_sort |
Mohammadali Tofighi |
title |
Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage |
title_short |
Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage |
title_full |
Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage |
title_fullStr |
Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage |
title_full_unstemmed |
Estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of Hajj pilgrimage |
title_sort |
estimating social contacts in mass gatherings for disease outbreak prevention and management: case of hajj pilgrimage |
publisher |
BMC |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 https://doaj.org/article/49ade6295783472db4f6fc9128d4cc0d |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(6.445,6.445,62.599,62.599) |
geographic |
Arctic Haram |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Haram |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines, Vol 8, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 https://doaj.org/toc/2055-0936 doi:10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 2055-0936 https://doaj.org/article/49ade6295783472db4f6fc9128d4cc0d |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3 |
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Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines |
container_volume |
8 |
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1 |
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