Limiting the spread of disease through altered migration patterns

TL;DR

This paper models epidemic spread across geographically distinct populations and demonstrates how susceptible individuals can collectively alter migration patterns to minimize epidemic growth and reduce overall impact.

Contribution

It introduces a strategy for susceptible individuals to optimize migration to limit disease spread, including explicit methods to minimize the basic reproduction number.

Findings

Susceptible-driven migration can significantly reduce epidemic growth.

Optimal migration strategies decrease the probability of epidemic extinction and total size.

Explicit solutions for minimizing the basic reproduction number are provided.

Abstract

We consider a model for an epidemic in a population that occupies geographically distinct locations. The disease is spread within subpopulations by contacts between infective and susceptible individuals, and is spread between subpopulations by the migration of infected individuals. We show how susceptible individuals can act collectively to limit the spread of disease during the initial phase of an epidemic, by specifying the distribution that minimises the growth rate of the epidemic when the infectives are migrating so as to maximise the growth rate. We also give an explicit strategy that minimises the basic reproduction number, which is also shown be optimal in terms of the probability of extinction and total size of the epidemic.