"Herd immunity": a rough guide.

Population viscosity suppresses disease emergence by preserving local herd immunity.

Animal reservoirs for infectious diseases pose ongoing risks to human populations. In this theory of zoonoses, the introduction event that starts an epidemic is assumed to be independent of all preceding events. However, introductions are often concentrated in communities that bridge the ecological interfaces between reservoirs and the general population. In this paper, we explore how the risks...

Herd Immunity/Herd Infection: Cultural Artifacts of Marginalization and the Dynamics of AIDS

We examine social conditions under which high prevalence of infectious disease can become endemic within a community, in effect constituting a state of ‘herd infection’ inverse to epidemiological herd immunity. For something like AIDS, under such a circumstance, a single behavioral lapse or adverse accident will probably be a death sentence.

CRISPR-based herd immunity can limit phage epidemics in bacterial populations.

Herd immunity, a process in which resistant individuals limit the spread of a pathogen among susceptible hosts has been extensively studied in eukaryotes. Even though bacteria have evolved multiple immune systems against their phage pathogens, herd immunity in bacteria remains unexplored. Here we experimentally demonstrate that herd immunity arises during phage epidemics in structured and unstr...

Assessing herd immunity against rubella in Japan: A retrospective seroepidemiological analysis of age-dependent transmission dynamics

Network structure can play a role in vaccination thresholds and herd immunity: a simulation using a network mathematical model.

To the Editor—Dominguez et al. [1] described outbreaks of measles occurring in Catalonia despite good vaccination rates. The way in which heterogeneity in the distribution of nonimmune individuals diminishes herd immunity can be explained using network simulation models. Herd immunity is the indirect impact of vaccination on an epidemic. This effect is caused by having a sufficient number of im...