An Influenza Virus Molecular Infection Model And Discrete Event, Stochastic Simulation.

Influenza virus is responsible for the greatest pandemic in human history causing 20 - 40 million deaths worldwide during the 1918 flu season. In 1997 fears of a future pandemic arose with the discovery of a new strain of H5N1 avian influenza. In an effort to better understand the dynamics of influenza infection a new model of influenza virus infection at the molecular level has been developed. Comprising nineteen stages and five molecular types (mRNA, cRNA, vRNA, vRNP and proteins) the FluSim model consists of the major contributing pathogen factors to influenza infection. A discrete event, stochastic simulation based upon this model utilizing the SimJava framework has also been implemented. Simulation results are compared against experimental evidence as well as a separate Dizzy simulation implementation.