Epidemic dynamics on complex networks with general infection rate and immune strategies

Abstract

This paper mainly aims to study the influence of individuals' different heterogeneous contact patterns on the spread of the disease. For this purpose, an SIS epidemic model with a general form of heterogeneous infection rate is investigated on complex heterogeneous networks. A qualitative analysis of this model reveals that, depending on the epidemic threshold \begin{document}$R_0$ \end{document} , either the disease-free equilibrium or the endemic equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable. Interestingly, no matter what functional form the heterogeneous infection rate is, whether the disease will disappear or not is completely determined by the value of \begin{document}$R_0$ \end{document} , but the heterogeneous infection rate has close relation with the epidemic threshold \begin{document}$R_0$ \end{document} . Especially, the heterogeneous infection rate can directly affect the final number of infected nodes when the disease is endemic. The obtained results improve and generalize some known results. Finally, based on the heterogeneity of contact patterns, the effects of different immunization schemes are discussed and compared. Meanwhile, we explore the relation between the immunization rate and the recovery rate, which are the two important parameters that can be improved. To illustrate our theoretical results, the corresponding numerical simulations are also included.