title: Limiting the spread of disease through altered migration patterns.
abstract: We consider a model for an epidemic in a population that occupies geographically distinct locations. The disease is spread within subpopulations by contacts between infective and susceptible individuals, and is spread between subpopulations by the migration of infected individuals. We show how susceptible individuals can act collectively to limit the spread of disease during the initial phase of an epidemic by specifying the distribution that minimises the growth rate of the epidemic when the infectives are migrating so as to maximise the growth rate. We also give an explicit strategy that minimises the basic reproduction number, which is also shown be optimal in terms of the probability of extinction and total size of the epidemic.
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Australia. Electronic address: r.mcvinish@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McVinish
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Pollett
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shausan
mesh_terms: D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission*; D063426:Human Migration; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted
keywords: Basic reproduction number; Branching process; Expected total size; Minimax optimisation