title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Minerva Center and Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 52900, Israel. cohenr@shoshi.ph.biu.ac.il
authors.forename: Reuven
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Shlomo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Havlin
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ben-Avraham
mesh_terms: D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D007114:Immunization; D020407:Internet; D008962:Models, Theoretical