Tofighi Mohammadali, Asgary Ali, Tofighi Ghassem, Najafabadi Mahdi M, Arino Julien, Amiche Amine, Rahman Ashrafur, McCarthy Zachary, Bragazzi Nicola Luigi, Thommes Edward, Coudeville Laurent, Grunnill Martin David, Bourouiba Lydia, Wu Jianhong
York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J1P3, Canada.
University of Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada.
Trop Dis Travel Med Vaccines. 2022 Sep 1;8(1):19. doi: 10.1186/s40794-022-00177-3.
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.
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.
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.
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.
由于新冠疫情，大多数大型集会活动已暂停。然而，随着疫苗接种的推进，在疫情恢复讨论中，是否以及如何组织其中一些大型集会活动成为了一部分议题，这就需要决策支持工具。朝觐是世界上最大的宗教集会之一，在2020年和2021年规模大幅缩减，2022年及后续年份将如何举行仍不明朗。模拟朝觐季节在不同条件下的疾病传播动态可为更好的决策提供一些见解。大多数疾病风险评估模型需要个体之间可能密切接触的数量和性质的数据。
我们试图使用基于智能体的建模和离散事件模拟技术，以捕捉朝觐者之间的风险接触，并评估朝觐主要场所之一——禁寺的不同情景。
模拟结果表明，在仪式期间可能会发生大量风险接触。此外，随着每个场所朝觐者总数的增加，风险接触的数量也会增加，并且在场所内朝觐者数量超过一定数量后，保持物理距离措施可能具有挑战性。
本研究提出了一种模拟工具，除了可用于朝觐季节新冠疫情的风险评估外，还可用于评估多种（呼吸道）传染病的风险。该工具可扩展以纳入疾病传播的其他影响因素，以量化大型集会活动的风险。
