Immune amnesia induced by measles and its effects on concurrent epidemics Barrios Morales, Guillermo Gabriel Muñoz Martínez, Miguel Ángel Epidemic spreading Dynamics on networks Phase transitions Immune amnesia We acknowledge the Spanish Ministry and Agencia Estatal de investigacion (AEI) through grant no. FIS2017-84256-P (European Regional Development Fund), as well as the Consejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion Universidad, Junta de Andalucia and European Regional Development Fund, Ref. A-FQM-175-UGR18 and SOMM17/6105/UGR for financial support. It has been recently discovered that the measles virus can damage pre-existing immunological memory, destroying B lymphocytes and reducing the diversity of non-specific B cells of the infected host. In particular, this implies that previously acquired immunization from vaccination or direct exposition to other pathogens could be partially erased in a phenomenon named ‘immune amnesia’, whose effects can become particularly worrisome given the actual rise of anti-vaccination movements. Here, we present the first attempt to incorporate immune amnesia into standard models of epidemic spreading by proposing a simple model for the spreading of two concurrent pathogens causing measles and another generic disease. Different analyses confirm that immune amnesia can have important consequences for epidemic spreading, significantly altering the vaccination coverage required to reach herd immunity. We also uncover the existence of novel propagating and endemic phases induced by immune amnesia. Finally, we discuss the meaning and consequences of our results and their relation with, e.g. immunization strategies, together with the possibility that explosive types of transitions may emerge, making immune-amnesia effects particularly dramatic. This work opens the door to further developments and analyses of immune-amnesia effects, contributing also to the theory of interacting epidemics on complex networks. 2021-07-21T09:58:54Z 2021-07-21T09:58:54Z 2021-06-16 journal article Morales GB, Muñoz MA. 2021 Immune amnesia induced by measles and its effects on concurrent epidemics. J. R. Soc. Interface 18: 20210153. [https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0153] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/69823 10.1098/rsif.2021.0153 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Royal Society