A Compartmental Simulation Model to Improve Interventions for Controlling Poliovirus Outbreaks

Poliomyelitis (polio) is an infectious disease that paralyzed millions of people worldwide before polio vaccines were available. Despite the successes of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, there are circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks that require improved interventions. We built a compartmental model to simulate the spread of polio that considers mutation of the live-attenuated virus (in the oral polio vaccine) to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. We validated the model in a case study of northern Nigeria and tested the impact of interventions that varied in the number of vaccination rounds and the target regions. Results indicated that the model captures polio dynamics by matching the case counts and their spatiotemporal and age distributions in the data. To stop the outbreaks, stakeholders should conduct aggressive interventions with more rounds and broader coverage, especially in the under-vaccinated regions, compared to the current practice.