Imitation game dynamics of vaccine-decision making behaviour on dengue transmission dynamics

Abstract

Dengue vaccine is available but is not effective against all dengue serotypes. This may affect individual's decision on the use of dengue vaccine. How the vaccine efficacy affects the human-decision making behaviour needs to be fully understood. In this paper, we develop a game dynamic where individuals adopt strategies (whether to use vaccine or not) according to an imitation dynamic, and assess its impact on dengue transmission dynamics. We found that in early period, when the proportion of vaccinators increases, the proportion of infected individuals decreases up to certain level and remains constant. This may suggest that not all population need to adopt vaccinator strategy in order to reduce the proportion of dengue cases. Furthermore, the re-infection parameter is one of the most influential parameters, which may indicate the presence of secondary infections in the population.