A Review of the Applications of Agent Based Simulation in Epidemic Diseases (Case study: Cutaneous Leishmaniasis)

Managing the spread of epidemic diseases is vitally important, because of its major effect on economic and social development of growing modern societies. About 25% (>15 million) of annual deaths worldwide are directly related to such diseases. The outbreaks of epidemic diseases is a dynamic phenomenon that changes in place and time. With the advance of science and technology, human tools for studying health problems, have improved. Agent Based Modeling (ABM) can be used as a new technology to study the spread of epidemic diseases. Given that capabilities of agent based models and geospatial information systems (GIS) in spread of diseases, little attention has been aimed at such modelling. The object of this study is to review the applications of the models in simulating epidemic diseases. Therefore, in this article, some applications of GIS and ABM are introduced, then, after studying the theoretical foundations of ABM are given. Next, one of the applications; the spread of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) disease was simulated in an area of Golestan province and some of its results were presented. In this study, an agent-based model ABM is developed to simulate the dynamics of CL spread based on an improved Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) epidemic model. Finally, suggestions for future works were presented.