Dose-limited interventions in an epidemiological model

TL;DR

This paper analyzes an epidemiological model incorporating dose-limited interventions, revealing how resource constraints influence disease dynamics and linking them to classical models.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical framework for dose-limited vaccination and treatment, connecting constrained scenarios to well-known epidemiological models.

Findings

Limited doses can be equivalent to no intervention when unreplenished.

Restoring stockpiles often aligns with classic vaccination and treatment models.

Budget constraints significantly affect transient and stochastic epidemic dynamics.

Abstract

We consider an SLIARS mathematical epidemiology model including intervention in the form of vaccination and treatment. Contrary to classical models, it is assumed that treatment doses can be limited in availability. Mathematically, we show that most scenarios actually reduce to classic well-known scenarios: having an unreplenished number of doses is akin to having none, while being able to restore stocks is (often) equivalent to the classic situation with vaccination and treatment. We also perform a computational analysis, illustrating some of the transient and stochastic dynamics that diverge from deterministic long-term behaviour, as well as the impact of budgetary constraints.