1. Optimal Voluntary Vaccination of Adults and Adolescents Can Help Eradicate Hepatitis B in China
- Author
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Jan Rychtář, Ayesha Ejaz, Kristen Scheckelhoff, Dewey Taylor, and Igor V. Erovenko
- Subjects
Statistics and Probability ,game theory ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Technology ,Social Sciences ,Hbv vaccination ,Annual incidence ,Nash equilibrium ,Environmental health ,Epidemiology ,ddc:330 ,medicine ,Treatment costs ,Hepatitis B in China ,business.industry ,Applied Mathematics ,Public health ,public health ,Hepatitis B ,medicine.disease ,vaccination ,Vaccination ,epidemiology ,hepatitis B ,Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty ,business - Abstract
Hepatitis B (HBV) is one of the most common infectious diseases, with a worldwide annual incidence of over 250 million people. About one-third of the cases are in China. While China made significant efforts to implement a nationwide HBV vaccination program for newborns, a significant number of susceptible adults and teens remain. In this paper, we analyze a game-theoretical model of HBV dynamics that incorporates government-provided vaccination at birth coupled with voluntary vaccinations of susceptible adults and teens. We show that the optimal voluntary vaccination brings the disease incidence to very low levels. This result is robust and, in particular, due to a high HBV treatment cost, essentially independent from the vaccine cost.
- Published
- 2021
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