Vaccination strategies in structured populations under partial immunity and reinfection

Abstract

Abstract Optimal protocols of vaccine administration to minimize the effects of infectious diseases depend on a number of variables that admit different degrees of control. Examples include the characteristics of the disease and how it impacts on different groups of individuals as a function of sex, age or socioeconomic status, its transmission mode, or the demographic structure of the affected population. Here we introduce a compartmental model of infection propagation with vaccination and reinfection and analyze the effect that variations on the rates of these two processes have on the progression of the disease and on the number of fatalities. The population is split into two groups to highlight the overall effects on disease caused by different relationships between vaccine administration and various demographic structures. As a practical example, we study COVID-19 dynamics in various countries using real demographic data. The model can be easily applied to any other disease transmitted through direct interaction between infected and susceptible individuals, and any demographic structure, through a suitable estimation of parameter values. Two main conclusions stand out. First, the higher the fraction of reinfected individuals, the higher the likelihood that the disease becomes quasi-endemic. Second, optimal vaccine roll-out depends on demographic structure and disease fatality, so there is no unique vaccination protocol, valid for all countries, that minimizes the effects of a specific disease. Simulations of the general model can be carried out at this interactive webpage Atienza (2021 S 2 iyrd model simulator).