Risk of Coinfection Outbreaks in Temporal Networks: A Case Study of a Hospital Contact Network

Abstract

We study the spreading of cooperative infections in an empirical temporal network of contacts between people, including health care workers and patients, in a hospital. The system exhibits a phase transition leading to one or several endemic branches, depending on the connectivity pattern and the temporal correlations. There are two endemic branches in the original setting and the non-cooperative case. However, the cooperative interaction between infections reinforces the upper branch, leading to a smaller epidemic threshold and a higher probability for having a big outbreak. We show the microscopic mechanisms leading to these differences, characterize three different risks, and use the influenza features as an example for this dynamics.DFG, 345463468, Interacting Dynamics on Networks, Applications to Epidemiology (idonate