Epidemiological Agent-Based Modelling Software (Epiabm)

Abstract

Epiabm is an open-source software package for epidemiological agent-based modelling, re-implementing the well-known CovidSim model from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London. It has been developed as part of the first-year training programme in the EPSRC SABS:R3 Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Oxford. The model builds an age-stratified, spatially heterogeneous population and offers a modular approach to configure and run epidemic scenarios, allowing for a broad scope of investigative and comparative studies. Two simulation backends are provided: a pedagogical Python backend (with full functionality) and a high performance C++ backend for use with larger population simulations. Both are highly modular, and include a comprehensive testing suite (including 100% coverage on unit tests alongside a range of functional and integration tests), as well as complete online documentation for ease of understanding and extensibility. Epiabm is publicly available through GitHub at github.com/SABS-R3-Epidemiology/epiabm.

Keywords

• agent-based modelling
• epidemiology
• covid-19
• python
• c++