Modelling by Simulations Monte Carlo of First Historical Zika Outbreak in Salta, Argentina, Occurred in 2017

Scopes and Objectives: We analyzed some aspects of the first historical outbreak of Zika that occurred in Salta, Argentina, in the year 2017. We obtained elementary estimates, such as the prevalence ratio and describe the probabilistic behavior of the outbreak by simulation of type Monte Carlo.

Study Design: Retrospective-descriptive studies and stochastic computational experiment analysis.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Mathematic, Faculty of Exact Sciences. National University of Salta, Argentina, from December 2020 to September 2021.

Methodology: Descriptive and computational experiment analysis. Estimates of parameters and Simulation of type Monte Carlo.

Results: We describe the probabilistic behavior through Monte Carlo simulation of the first historical outbreak of Zika in Salta Argentina, 2017. Based on the data of registered Zika cases, we estimate a probabilistic model for it. We also spatially describe the outbreak by estimating the prevalence ratio. Finally, by computational experiment we generate epidemic outbreaks with 10, 20 and 30 runs, determining the intrinsic growth rate and estimating the basic reproductive number R0 for a generation time that takes into account both man and mosquito. We find that the estimates are significantly affected for the simulation type factor of 10 runs. The computational experiment shows that the descriptions of the outbreak and the estimates of R0 obtained, if the number of repetitions of the experiment corresponds to 20 and 30 runs, are qualitatively acceptable.