Comparative analysis of the effectiveness of three immunization strategies in controlling disease outbreaks in realistic social networks.

Zhijing Xu,Tao Zheng,Jinjie Liu,Wendou Zhang,Zhenghu Zu,Qing Xu,Dominik Wodarz

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0095911

Abstract

The high incidence of emerging infectious diseases has highlighted the importance of effective immunization strategies, especially the stochastic algorithms based on local available network information. Present stochastic strategies are mainly evaluated based on classical network models, such as scale-free networks and small-world networks, and thus are insufficient. Three frequently referred stochastic immunization strategies—acquaintance immunization, community-bridge immunization, and ring vaccination—were analyzed in this work. The optimal immunization ratios for acquaintance immunization and community-bridge immunization strategies were investigated, and the effectiveness of these three strategies in controlling the spreading of epidemics were analyzed based on realistic social contact networks. The results show all the strategies have decreased the coverage of the epidemics compared to baseline scenario (no control measures). However the effectiveness of acquaintance immunization and community-bridge immunization are very limited, with acquaintance immunization slightly outperforming community-bridge immunization. Ring vaccination significantly outperforms acquaintance immunization and community-bridge immunization, and the sensitivity analysis shows it could be applied to controlling the epidemics with a wide infectivity spectrum. The effectiveness of several classical stochastic immunization strategies was evaluated based on realistic contact networks for the first time in this study. These results could have important significance for epidemic control research and practice.

Highlights

Infectious diseases are diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi, which can be spread directly or indirectly from person to person
In this paper the effectiveness of three stochastic immunization strategies in controlling the spreading of the epidemics based on realistic social contact networks was analyzed
We found that there exists an optimal immunization ratio for acquaintance immunization (AI) and community-bridge immunization (CBI) for a specific r which leads to a minimum number of individuals infected and immunized

Summary

Introduction

Infectious diseases are diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi, which can be spread directly or indirectly from person to person. Network models define the detailed contact structure of the population, which would be conducive to the effectiveness assessment of different interventions, they are widely applied to the study of immunization strategies.

Results

Conclusion