This paper introduces EPIMOD, a generalization of the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) epidemic model. The generalization is essentially to expand the infected compartment of SIR into a transient class of compartments in a continuous-time Markov chain. EPIMOD is general enough to encompass a variety of communicable diseases, while still being simple enough to enable planning for their consequences and containment. Stochastic and deterministic analyses are made and compared. Examples include one based on an Ebola epidemic in the USA.

epidemic, Ebola, SEIR.