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Virus Spread

Natasha Higdon

MHA/507

December 3, 2018

Professor David Stribbards

Introduction

There are different virus’ that affect people across the world. It can be noted that the increased development of cities has led to the potential risks as well as challenges based on emerging infectious diseases. They have associated many risk factors with the spread of diseases in the US cities. These factors are housing conditions, people’s movement, etc. that has led to a change or proliferation of insect vectors. Other factors that have led to the spread or outbreak of viruses are poor sanitation and insufficient water supply. This has contributed to the comfortable breeding ground for insects, which carry pathogens and another transmitted infection. This paper presents information about a virus outbreak in US cities and prevalence rates based on age.

Virus Infections

Cities are considered as the perfect hotbed and breeding ground for viruses and the spread of disease as more people move to crowded areas. As the world becomes more urbanized, the more cities will grow or develop; these cities might be kept clean or well maintained. Even though big cities have all the required health care facilities such as a sanitation department, but the moment the population increases the city always outgrows these service. According to the study conducted by Adda, (2016), there is an increased number of people traveling in the US, and this might be the reason for the virus outbreak. The individual cities in the United States have shown different transmission patterns, which are different due to climate variation etc.

Figure 1: Virus Prevalence

The Figure above presents virus spread according to the age. The findings show that people aged less than years are highly affected by the virus as compared to any other age group. This age group has reported a high number of cases in most cities in the US. The ages least affected are between 19 and 30; this group has a lower number of cases in all cities as compared to any other group. People aged 18 years and less has a high prevalence rate of 0.43 while those aged between 19 and 30 had a prevalence rate of 0.154. The findings imply that younger people are highly affected by virus across all cities in the US.

References

Adda, J. (2016). Economic activity and the spread of viral diseases: Evidence from high-frequency data. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(2), 891-941.