The impact of vaccination on human papillomavirus infection with disassortative geographical mixing

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection can spread between regions. What is the impact of disassortative geographical mixing on the dynamics of HPV transmission? Vaccination is effective in preventing HPV infection. How to allocate HPV vaccines between genders within each region and between regions to reduce the total infection? In this talk, I will use a two-patch model to address these questions. Both analytical and numerical results reveal that disassortative geographical mixing does not affect the control reproduction number R₀ and only has a minor impact on the disease prevalence in the total population given the vaccine uptake proportional to the population size for each gender in the two patches. When the vaccine uptake is not proportional to the population size, sexual mixing between the two patches can reduce R₀ and mitigate the consequence of disproportionate vaccine coverage. Using parameters calibrated from the data of a case study, we find that if the two patches have the same or similar sex ratios, allocating vaccines proportionally according to the new recruits in two patches and giving priority to the gender with a smaller recruit rate within each patch will bring the maximum benefit. We also show that a time-variable vaccination strategy between the two patches can further reduce the disease prevalence.