2023-12-23 23:10:36
The researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM, Jorge Xicoténcatl Velasco Hernández, asserts that the use of quantitative tools has proven to be important in the study of infectious diseases and their spread; The Covid-19 pandemic put these useful instruments for scenario generation in the spotlight.
Knowledge of the exact sciences allows those responsible for making public health decisions to use them in an informed manner.
Mathematical models and quantitative tools in general, using appropriate information, can be really effective in projecting possible scenarios that require more or less effort to control, or eventually eradicate, a health emergency.
When giving the conference “Mathematical strategies for reducing a pandemic,” he explained that in the world there are groups specialized in generating scenarios and building models for epidemics.
During the global health emergency, unfortunately, an impressive number of people dedicated to creating models appeared, however, to project models of any biological process, you not only have to know mathematics, you must work with multidisciplinary teams with information regarding the health phenomenon or natural that is developing.
“It is not a problem of curve fitting, nor of statistics, it is a problem in this case of epidemiology, and what happened is that there were many people who without knowledge began to make models because they knew mathematics. A little late the experts entered to the presentation of ideas, and the projection began to improve.”
Researchers from the UNAM Mathematics Institute worked with the government of Mexico City and the State of Querétaro, and at the end of 2021 they developed the back-to-school strategy, where the predictions of their models and the results allowed them to develop risk indices used by the Ministry of Public Education, SEP, for opening, partial closure or total closure of schools in different municipalities of the State.
“This is an example of how quantitative tools in the hands of people in charge of public health with judgment and multidisciplinary teams can provide useful recommendations for the population.”
The Covid-19 pandemic was left with another characteristic, but the epidemics will continue, in fact, there are other diseases in the country that had an interaction with the Coronacurus, some practically disappeared during the two-year stage, others remained at their levels. normal, others that at the end of the epidemic began to rise and those continue to be of interest for their control, mitigation or eradication, so we must be prepared.
In the United States of America, the disease control centers created a special department for data analysis and epidemic prediction to prepare, and it does not happen that improvised people start saying how the epidemic is going.
“In our case we are organizing ourselves to the best of our abilities. The use of mathematical models for mitigation, control and generation of scenarios of possible health emergencies related to epidemics is not going to go away, it will continue to be important for public health policy.”
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