Effects of the proportion of high-risk patients and control strategies on the prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in an intensive care unit

Table 1 List of parameters for MRSA transmission among high-risk and low-risk patients via HCWs

Description	Symbol(s)	Value(s)	References
Proportion of high-risk patients	θ	0.5,[0,1]	[39]
Proportions of colonized patients in the high-risk and low-risk groups at admission	λ_CH,λ_CL	0.2, 0.05	[40]
Proportions of infected patients in the high-risk and low-risk groups at admission	λ_IH,λ_IL	0.01, 0	[41]
Discharge rates of uncolonized and colonized patients in the	γ_H,γ_L high-risk and low-risk groups	1/9,1/5	[29, 42, 43]
Probabilities of developing an MRSA infection in high-risk and low-risk patients	p_H,p_L	0.2, 0.05	[41, 44]
Treatment rates for high-risk and low-risk patients	ν_H,ν_L	1/10,1/5	[45]
Probabilities of MRSA-related death in high-risk and low-risk patients	d_H,d_L	0.3, 0.15	[14, 39, 46]
Total numbers of patients	N_p	48
Ratio of patients to HCWs	r	4	[39]
Decontamination rate in HCWs	η	24	[13]
Per capita contact rate	c	1.38	[30]
Probability of successful colonization	q	0.01	[13, 31]
Probability of successful contamination for colonized and infected patients	q_C,q_I	0.17, 0.25	[13, 32]
Transmission coefficient from contaminated HCWs to uncolonized patients	β	cqN_p
Transmission coefficients from colonized and infected patients to uncontaminated HCWs	α_C,α_I	cq_CN_p,cq_IN_p
Control factor for targeted measures on high-risk patients	σ	0.5,[0,1]	varying
Control factor for targeted measures on infected patients	κ	0.5,[0,1]	varying

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