Analysis of epidemic disease control using metapopulation models

Abstract

Mathematical models of epidemic diseases are used for understanding complex spreading processes of diseases and assessing the efficacy of countermeasures to epidemics. Among them, metapopulation epidemic models consider populations distributed in spatially distant patches and migration of individuals between patches. These models can be theoretically analyzed to some extent as well as can incorporate realistic factors. In this review, we focus on local interventions to a fraction of patches for reducing the effective transmission rates in the patches. We explain the analytical derivation of the minimum fraction of patches (or the intervention threshold） that is necessary for prevention of global epidemic outbreaks and numerical simulations for validating the efficacy of targeted intervention.