Epidemic branching processes with and without vaccination

Abstract

Here we treat the transmission of disease through a population as a standard Galton-Watson branching process, modified to take the presence of vaccination into account. Vaccination reduces the number of secondary infections produced per infected individual. We show that introducing vaccination in a population therefore reduces the expected time to extinction of the infection. We also prove results relating the distribution of number of secondery infections with and without vaccinations.

arXiv comment17 pages