This paper demonstrates that the susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) model applied to the early phase of an epidemic can be used to determine epidemic parameters reliably. As a case study the SIR model is applied to the fatality data of the 2009 fall wave cycle of the A(H1N1) pandemic in 12 European countries. It is observed that the best estimates of the basic reproduction number R-0 and the mean duration of the infection period 1/eta lie on a curve in the scatterplots indicating the existence of ...