The effect of heterogeneity of relative vaccine costs on the mean population vaccination rate with mpox as an example

IF 1.9 4区数学 Q2 BIOLOGY

Journal of Theoretical Biology Pub Date : 2025-02-10 DOI:10.1016/j.jtbi.2025.112062

Spalding Garakani , Luis Flores , Guillermo Alvarez-Pardo , Jan Rychtář , Dewey Taylor

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) is a neglected tropical disease that became notorious during its 2022–2023 worldwide outbreak. The vaccination was available, but there were inequities in vaccine access. In this paper, we extend existing game-theoretic models to study a population that is heterogeneous in the relative vaccination costs. We consider a population with two groups. We determine the Nash equilibria (NE), i.e., optimal vaccination rates, for each of the groups. We show that the NE always exists and that, for a narrow range of parameter values, there can be multiple NEs. We focus on comparing the mean optimal vaccination rate in the heterogeneous population with the optimal vaccination rate in the corresponding homogeneous population. We show that there is a critical size for the group with lower relative costs and the mean optimal vaccination in the heterogeneous population is more than in the homogeneous population if and only if the group is larger than the critical size.

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相对疫苗成本异质性对人群平均疫苗接种率的影响，以mpox为例。

天花（原名猴痘）是一种被忽视的热带疾病，在 2022-2023 年全球爆发期间臭名昭著。疫苗是可以接种的，但在疫苗接种方面存在不公平现象。在本文中，我们扩展了现有的博弈论模型，以研究在相对接种成本方面存在异质性的人群。我们考虑了有两个群体的人口。我们确定了每个群体的纳什均衡（NE），即最佳接种率。我们的研究表明，NE 始终存在，而且在参数值范围较小的情况下，可能存在多个 NE。我们主要关注异质人群的平均最佳接种率与相应同质人群的最佳接种率之间的比较。我们的研究表明，相对成本较低的群体存在一个临界规模，当且仅当该群体大于临界规模时，异质群体的平均最佳接种率高于同质群体。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Theoretical Biology 生物-生物学

CiteScore

4.20

自引率

5.00%

发文量

218

审稿时长

51 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Theoretical Biology is the leading forum for theoretical perspectives that give insight into biological processes. It covers a very wide range of topics and is of interest to biologists in many areas of research, including: • Brain and Neuroscience • Cancer Growth and Treatment • Cell Biology • Developmental Biology • Ecology • Evolution • Immunology, • Infectious and non-infectious Diseases, • Mathematical, Computational, Biophysical and Statistical Modeling • Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry • Networks and Complex Systems • Physiology • Pharmacodynamics • Animal Behavior and Game Theory Acceptable papers are those that bear significant importance on the biology per se being presented, and not on the mathematical analysis. Papers that include some data or experimental material bearing on theory will be considered, including those that contain comparative study, statistical data analysis, mathematical proof, computer simulations, experiments, field observations, or even philosophical arguments, which are all methods to support or reject theoretical ideas. However, there should be a concerted effort to make papers intelligible to biologists in the chosen field.