Efficient Immunization Strategies for Computer Networks and Populations

Abstract

We present an effective immunization strategy for computer networks and populations with broad and, in particular, scale-free degree distributions. The proposed strategy, acquaintance immunization, calls for the immunization of random acquaintances of random nodes (individuals). The strategy requires no knowledge of the node degrees or any other global knowledge, as do targeted immunization strategies. We study analytically the critical threshold for complete immunization. We also study the strategy with respect to the susceptible-infected-removed epidemiological model. We show that the immunization threshold is dramatically reduced with the suggested strategy, for all studied cases.

Revtex, 5 pages, 4 ps figs

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Threshold effects for two pathogens spreading on a network
• Efficient local strategies for vaccination and network attack
• Scale-Free Networks Generated By Random Walkers
• Immunization of Real Complex Communication Networks
• Distance-d covering problems in scale-free networks with degree correlations
• Immunization Dynamics on a 2-layer Network Model
• Impact of network structure on the capacity of wireless multihop ad hoc communication
• The Immunity of Polymer-Microemulsion Networks
• Epidemic dynamics on complex networks
• Self-Repairing Peer-to-Peer Networks