PREVENTING EPIDEMICS WITH AGE-SPECIFIC VACCINATION SCHEDULES

A method is proposed for computing the coverage required to prevent ep idemics by age-specific vaccination schedules. The method applies in a very general setting and provides explicit expressions in many cases. It can accommodate vaccination doses administered at different ages, heterogeneity among individuals of different ages, a community structu red into households, and waning of vaccine-induced immunity. A compari son of results for two specific community settings, with analogous par ameter values, indicates that the immunity coverage required to preven t epidemics in a community of households is less than that required fo r a community of uniformly mixing individuals. (C) Elsevier Science In c., 1997.