Graphs with specified degree distributions, simple epidemics and local vaccination strategies

Abstract

Consider a random graph, having a pre-specified degree distribution F but other than that being uniformly distributed, describing the social structure (friendship) in a large community. Suppose one individual in the community is externally infected by an infectious disease and that the disease has its course by assuming that infected individuals infect their not yet infected friends independently with probability p. For this situation the paper determines R_0 and tau_0, the basic reproduction number and the asymptotic final size in case of a major outbreak. Further, the paper looks at some different local vaccination strategies where individuals are chosen randomly and vaccinated, or friends of the selected individuals are vaccinated, prior to the introduction of the disease. For the studied vaccination strategies the paper determines R_v: the reproduction number, and tau_v: the asymptotic final proportion infected in case of a major outbreak, after vaccinating a fraction v.