Modelling the effect of heterogeneous vaccination on metapopulation epidemic dynamics

Publication date: Available online 23 September 2019Source: Physics Letters AAuthor(s): Yongwang Gong, Michael SmallAbstractVaccination as an epidemic control strategy has a significant effect on epidemic spreading. In this paper, we propose a novel epidemic spreading model on metapopulation networks to study the impact of heterogeneous vaccination on epidemic dynamics, where nodes represent geographical areas and links connecting nodes correspond to human mobility between areas. Using a mean-field approach, we derive the theoretical spreading threshold revealing a non-trivial dependence on the heterogeneity of vaccination. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations validate the theoretical threshold and also show the complex temporal epidemic behaviours above the threshold.
Source: Physics Letters A - Category: Physics Source Type: research