Imperfect targeted immunization in scale-free networks

Yubo Wang, Gaoxi Xiao, Jie Hu, Tee Hiang Cheng and Limsoon Wang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2009, vol. 388, issue 12, 2535-2546

Abstract: Scale-free networks are prone to epidemic spreading. To provide cost-effective protection for such networks, targeted immunization was proposed to selectively immunize the hub nodes. In many real-life applications, however, the targeted immunization may not be perfect, either because some hub nodes are hidden and consequently not immunized, or because the vaccination simply cannot provide perfect protection. We investigate the effects of imperfect targeted immunization in scale-free networks. Analysis and simulation results show that there exists a linear relationship between the inverse of the epidemic threshold and the effectiveness of targeted immunization. Therefore, the probability of epidemic outbreak cannot be significantly lowered unless the protection is reasonably strong. On the other hand, even a relatively weak protection over the hub nodes significantly decreases the number of network nodes ever getting infected and therefore enhances network robustness against virus. We show that the above conclusions remain valid where there exists a negative correlation between nodal degree and infectiousness.

Keywords: Scale-free network; Imperfect immunization; Epidemic threshold; Average outbreak size; Degree-correlated SIR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:388:y:2009:i:12:p:2535-2546

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2009.02.036

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