Key result
Game theoretical modeling demonstrated that FMD vaccination provides households with a lower payoff than not vaccinating, explaining the limited vaccine uptake in endemic regions.
Why the study?
Foot-and-mouth disease vaccination remains low in parts of Africa despite vaccine existence, and the impact of vaccine matching uncertainty in endemic settings is not well understood.
Game theory modeling suggests that low FMD vaccine uptake in East Africa is a rational response to vaccine uncertainty and low payoffs compared to not vaccinating.
Vaccine uncertainty may explain low FMD uptake in East Africa; leaves open whether game-theoretic interventions can improve coverage in endemic settings.
Vaccination for foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease remains low in parts of Africa despite the existence of vaccines. In East Africa, the presence of multiple virus serotypes and sub-types makes matching a vaccine with the circulating virus type in the field, or providing a high potency vaccine, a challenge. In this paper we use game theory to show that the resulting vaccine uncertainty associated with these vaccination conditions in an endemic setting help explain the low vaccine uptake. We evaluate vaccination for FMD in the context of East Africa due to FMD being endemic in the region, the diversity of FMD virus types, and barriers to implementing other disease control measures, such as controlled movements. We incorporate these conditions into a vaccination game setting and compare the payoffs to those of a traditional vaccination game for seasonal influenza and commercial livestock vaccination in a developed country context. In showing that vaccination provides households with a lower payoff than not vaccinating, our simple game theoretical explanation supports existing evidence calling for improved vaccine quality and efforts to enhance surveillance to provide early information on disease status.
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Railey et al. (2019) studied Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). FMD vaccination vs. Not vaccinating was evaluated on Payoff of vaccination. Game theoretical modeling demonstrated that FMD vaccination provides households with a lower payoff than not vaccinating, explaining the limited vaccine uptake in endemic regions.
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