Undergraduate Research: An Archive - 2021 Program

HEALTH AND DISEASE
THESIS TITLE
Projecting Measles
Susceptibility Build-Up
in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo
Following Vaccination
Delays
ADVISER
C. Jessica Metcalf,
Associate Professor of
Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology
and Public Affairs
Zoe Rennie ’21
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Certificate in Environmental Studies
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has
experienced a resurgence of measles as COVID-19
attributed vaccination delays created pockets
of susceptible individuals and facilitated an
environment for outbreak. My research created
an interactive map of the DRC to visualize the
build-up of susceptible individuals to measles
in its 26 provinces. The simulation implements
equations through time steps corresponding to
the inputted duration of disruption by taking
into account user input for the parameters of
birth rate, R0, duration of disruption, start of
disruption, reduction in vaccination, and the
proportion of the population vaccinated, as
well as initial values for population, susceptible
and infected individuals. My visualization
allowed for pockets of susceptible individuals
to be understood under different conditions
of vaccination. Visualizing the build-up of
susceptible individuals to measles can be helpful
to health officials and policymakers, particularly
when challenged with distributing limited
resources and in unprecedented circumstances
such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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