Theoretical examination of the pulse vaccination policy in the SIR epidemic model

Based on a theory of population dynamics in perturbed environments, it was hypothesized that measles epidemics can be more efficiently controlled by pulse vaccination, i.e., by a vaccination effort that is pulsed over time [1]. Here, we analyze the rationale of the pulse vaccination strategy in the simple SIR epidemic model. We show that repeatedly vaccinating the susceptible population in a series of "pulses," it is possible to eradicate the measles infection from the entire model population. We derive the conditions for epidemic eradication under various constraints and show their dependence on the parameters of the epidemic model. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.