Effects of individual variation and seasonal vaccination on disease risks

William S. Hart (), Jina Amin, Hyeongki Park, Kosaku Kitagawa, Yong Dam Jeong, Alexander R. Kaye, Shingo Iwami and Robin N. Thompson
Additional contact information
William S. Hart: University of Oxford
Jina Amin: University of Oxford
Hyeongki Park: Pusan National University
Kosaku Kitagawa: Nagoya University
Yong Dam Jeong: Nagoya University
Alexander R. Kaye: University of Warwick
Shingo Iwami: Nagoya University
Robin N. Thompson: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Estimates of the risk of a large outbreak resulting from pathogen introduction into a population are valuable for planning interventions. Two key factors affecting outbreak risks are variation in transmission between individuals (e.g., superspreading individuals) and change over time (e.g., through seasonality or changing population immunity due to vaccination). Here, we develop an outbreak risk estimation framework that accounts for both features simultaneously. To demonstrate the real-world application of our framework, we consider the design of annual COVID-19 booster vaccination campaigns, using a multi-scale approach incorporating an individual-level model of vaccine-induced antibody dynamics. Near the start of annual vaccine distribution, when population immunity is low, a high outbreak risk is possible; this can be mitigated by distributing vaccines over a longer period. We show that longer distribution periods are particularly beneficial if vaccine coverage and/or effectiveness is high, and if seasonality in transmission is limited.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63375-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-63375-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63375-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().