Modeling the effects of information-dependent vaccination behavior on meningitis transmission

TL;DR

This paper develops a mathematical model to study how information-driven vaccination behaviors influence meningitis spread, highlighting the importance of information delay and behavioral responses in epidemic dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model incorporating information-dependent vaccination behavior and analyzes its stability and bifurcation properties.

Findings

Information delay critically affects epidemic outcomes.

Behavioral responses can induce recurrent epidemics.

Endemic stability depends on transfer rates and information parameters.

Abstract

We propose a mathematical model to investigate the effects of information-dependent vaccination behavior on meningitis transmission. The information is represented by means of information index as early proposed in (d'Onofrio et al., Theor. pop. biol., 2007). We perform a qualitative analysis based on stability theory, focusing to the global stability of the disease free equilibrium (DFE) and the related transcritical bifurcation taking place at the threshold for the DFE. Finally, we assess the role of epidemiological and information parameters in the model dynamics through numerical simulations. Our simulations suggests that the impact of the human behavior critically depend on the average information delay. For example, it can induce recurrent epidemics, provided that transfer rate from the carrier to the infectious state is over a threshold. Otherwise, the endemic equilibrium is (at least) locally stable.