This workshop is jointly organized with African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS),
South African Centre for
Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA) and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
This workshop is jointly sponsored by:
The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS), in collaboration with the South African DST/NRF Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modeling and Analysis (SACEMA), will hold a 3-day Workshop on mathematical modeling and infectious diseases in Africa. The workshop, to be held at the School of Computational and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand. (Wits), Johannesburg, South Africa, on September 26-28, 2006, will bring together scientists from the US and various African countries, as well as junior researchers and students from the US and Africa. Mathematical modeling of the spread of infectious disease has a long history going back to the work of Bernoulli in the modeling of smallpox in 1760. However, endemic and emerging diseases in Africa provide new and complex challenges for mathematical modeling, challenges we shall aim to identify and explore through this workshop. The workshop will provide an agenda for future collaborations between US and African scientists. It will expose junior US scientists and students to the special challenges of modeling the spread of disease in Africa and the opportunities to collaborate with Africans in developing and applying the tools of mathematical modeling to the tremendous health problems caused by such diseases as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as the possible interventions in the case of major new health threats such as pandemic influenza in a developing region of the world.