Immunization strategy for epidemic spreading on multilayer networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates a targeted immunization strategy on multilayer networks, revealing its limited overall efficiency but significant impact on the immunized layer, highlighting challenges in controlling epidemics in complex layered systems.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates a targeted immunization approach applied to one layer of a multilayer network, analyzing its effects across all layers.

Findings

Immunization requires over 80% coverage to halt disease spread.

The strategy significantly reduces epidemic size in the targeted layer.

It has limited protective effects on non-immunized layers.

Abstract

In many real-world complex systems, individuals have many kind of interactions among them, suggesting that it is necessary to consider a layered structure framework to model systems such as social interactions. This structure can be captured by multilayer networks and can have major effects on the spreading of process that occurs over them, such as epidemics. In this Letter we study a targeted immunization strategy for epidemic spreading over a multilayer network. We apply the strategy in one of the layers and study its effect in all layers of the network disregarding degree-degree correlation among layers. We found that the targeted strategy is not as efficient as in isolated networks, due to the fact that in order to stop the spreading of the disease it is necessary to immunize more than the 80 % of the individuals. However, the size of the epidemic is drastically reduced in the layer where the immunization strategy is applied compared to the case with no mitigation strategy. Thus, the immunization strategy has a major effect on the layer were it is applied, but does not efficiently protect the individuals of other layers.