Ring vaccination

Based on the description of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a particle model is developed describing the most important properties of thi s epidemic. Also control measures (mass and ring vaccination) are implement ed. This model shows the expected behavior in simulations. Since it is impo ssible to treat this model analytically, we use ideas of branching processe s on two levels to derive a caricature of the particle model. In simulation s it is shown that this caricature exhibits similar behavior as the particl e system. It is possible to analyze the caricature and, in this way, to obt ain expressions for the most important quantities like the reproduction num ber or the expected final number of infected individuals etc. In this way m ass vaccination and ring vaccination can be compared and control strategies can be optimized.