A new model to predict the spread of emerging diseases has been developed by researchers in the US, Italy, and France. The model, described in the online open access journal BMC Medicine, could give healthcare professionals advance warning of the path an emerging disease might take and so might improve emergency responses and control.Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) spread rapidly in 2002-2003, revealing just how vulnerable we might be to emerging diseases and how global transportation is critical to the spread of an epidemic.
