Air-Transportation Networks and the Spatial Spreading of Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Many studies suggest that air-transportation networks contribute a lot to the spatiotemporal dynamics of infectious diseases. The mobility of individuals over the networks has greatly speeded up the spreading processes of the epidemics and pushed the population in non-epidemic areas into the risk of infection. To figure out the underlying interactions between the air-transportation networks and the transmission of the epidemics, we have (i) analyzed the air-routes and the statistical data on the passenger throughput of the civil aviation of China and (ii) carried out a computer simulation based on the assumption that a novel influenza outbreaks in Southeast Asia. The results show that the topology of the air-transportations networks has a typical structure of heterogeneities. We also find that the epidemics will soon strike China after the initial outbreaks and rapidly spread throughout the whole networks without air-travel restrictions even the reproductive number () is small.