Hybrid closure-approximation to epidemic models

We consider an epidemic model that extends the two-dimensional contact process by including more general processes of disease transmission and control. A hybrid approximation method that elaborates on the common pair approximation is proposed and shown to give very accurate predictions for the order parameter (epidemic size) over the whole parameter-space, including the critical region. In addition, we obtain a non-trivial prediction for the order parameter critical exponent beta. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.