Madeira Epidemic Modellers Encounter 2023 | March 27-31, 2023 | University of Madeira

The Madeira Epidemic Modellers Encounter 2023 serves as a platform for different international modelling groups. In the pandemic times every group was learning but the exchange was not so present. 

In Funchal we have especially this time programmers from the two largest Polish agent-based model systems. The corresponding groups are consultants for the Polish government. In addition there are representatives from the Helmholtz Center of Infectious Disease Dynamics in Braunschweig Germany, representatives from the OPTIMAGENT consortium, which is building an epidemic model based on a digital twin of Germany and other modelling experts for infectious diseases. 

Data-based modelling is an elementary tool for timely and targeted responses in the fight against pathogens. Models use current knowledge and make it interpretable, such that predictions and mechanisms about the spreading dynamics of infectious diseases could be understood in a deeper way. Besides Medical factors, contact behaviour or containment measures that have been taken into account.  In order to make statements as reliable as possible, it is essential to involve experts from different scientific disciplines when selecting these model assumptions and parameters. Not only for COVID-19, but also for future pandemics, modelling provides the scientific basis for political decisions and intervention measures and thus has a direct impact on our lives.

The last Madeira Epidemic Modellers Encounter served as a key ingredient in the application process for large consortia in Epidemic Modelling in Germany. We want to use this spirit to discuss extensions on the European level. 

We are very grateful for the hospitality of the University of Madeira. The OPTIMAGENT and also the big RESPINOW consortium would not have been possible without the opportunity to exchange and meet on this island. We hope that this is start of a long sequence of annual encounters in Madeira.