Uniqueness of Nash equilibrium in vaccination games

Abstract

One crucial condition for the uniqueness of Nash equilibrium set in vaccination games is that the attack ratio monotonically decreases as the vaccine coverage level increasing. We consider several deterministic vaccination models in homogeneous mixing population and in heterogeneous mixing population. Based on the final size relations obtained from the deterministic epidemic models, we prove that the attack ratios can be expressed in terms of the vaccine coverage levels, and also prove that the attack ratios are decreasing functions of vaccine coverage levels. Some thresholds are presented, which depend on the vaccine efficacy. It is proved that for vaccination games in homogeneous mixing population, there is a unique Nash equilibrium for each game.

Keywords

• Epidemiology
• game theory
• uniqueness of Nash equilibrium
• vaccination game
• homogeneous mixing population
• heterogeneous mixing population
• compartmentalepidemic models
• final size relations
• population dynamics