Mathematical models to guide the development of transmissible vaccines for wildlife

Pathogens in wildlife routinely spill into human populations causing disease and occasionally seed epidemics and pandemics. While conventional vaccines have been useful in controlling some infectious diseases in wildlife populations, such as rabies in raccoons and foxes in the US, vaccination of many wildlife populations is impractical or infeasible. Transmissible vaccines—vaccines capable of spreading from one individual to another—are a new technology in development that may allow for the reduction or elimination of pathogens in the reservoir species thereby preventing the spillover of the pathogen into human populations. In this talk, we will show how mathematical models have been used to assist in this development, from basic theory of transmissible vaccine epidemiology to within-host vaccine dynamics and optimal vaccine design.