An example for the prevalence of symptomatic cases resulting from our SEIR model is shown in Figure S2 for three different values of R0 (1.34, 1.58, and 2.04). For an R0 of 1.58 the point estimate of the timing of the peak after introduction of the first case would be 10 to 11 weeks (depending on the number of imported cases, compare Table 1 ), the point estimate for the peak prevalence of the population infected would be 4.3%, for the total attack rate of the population infected 44.8% and for the population diseased 38.5% (Table 1) . Depending on the three R0 the cumulative proportions of children that develop symptoms are 48%, 67%, and 79%, and the cumulative proportion of symptomatic adults 17%, 34%, and 54%, respectively. As a result of the higher susceptibility of children in the model the peak proportion of infected children is reached 18, 12 or 8 weeks (126, 82, or 56 days) after the first infected case, roughly 1-1.5 weeks earlier (i.e. 11, 8 or 6 days) than in adults (data not shown). Figure S3 shows how the peak is delayed for an assumed R0 of 1.58 and 5 imported cases per day when the first 500 cases are managed with a combination of intensive case-based measures (CCM1), followed by 10,000 with management mainly restricted to members of the household (CCM2; for details see Methods section). The effect of the number of household focused interventions (CCM2) on the delay of the peak is dependant on the basic reproduction number R0 and the sensitivity of the surveillance system ( Figure S4 ). When R0 is at least 1.58 and not more than 30% of cases can be detected, saturation occurs relatively early. Even if 50% of the cases can be detected or R0 is as small as 1.34 the peak of the epidemic can not be deferred any more after management of approximately 10,000 cases with CCM2. In general can be said: the higher R0 the earlier management with CCM2 becomes ineffective. This can only be balanced to a certain degree by a higher sensitivity of the surveillance system.