Measles dynamics and vaccination diffusion

Abstract

Although numerous mathematical models focusing on measles dynamics have been proposed in the literature, efforts in this area have concentrated essentially on the mechanisms of measles propagation. If present, vaccination diffusion is treated as an exogenous factor. Here we propose a model focused on the course of measles in France in which the mechanisms of vaccination diffusion are explicitly modeled. The parameters in this model are estimated by an original method based on an expectation-maximization algorithm. This model gives indications of the way in which measles propagation and vaccination diffusion interact. It also allows discussion of the possibility of eliminating this disease in France in the near future.