Modeling of contact tracing in social networks

✍ Scribed by Lev S Tsimring; Ramón Huerta

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 150 KB
• Volume: 325
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0378-4371
• DOI: 10.1016/s0378-4371(03)00180-8

✦ Synopsis

Spreading of certain infections in complex networks is e ectively suppressed by using intelligent strategies for epidemic control. One such standard epidemiological strategy consists in tracing contacts of infected individuals. In this paper, we use a recently introduced generalization of the standard susceptible-infectious-removed stochastic model for epidemics in sparse random networks which incorporates an additional (traced) state. We describe a deterministic mean-ÿeld description which yields quantitative agreement with stochastic simulations on random graphs. We also discuss the role of contact tracing in epidemics control in small-world and scale-free networks. E ectiveness of contact tracing grows as the rewiring probability is reduced.