  We propose a novel framework to study viral spreading processes in
metapopulation models. Large subpopulations (i.e., cities) are connected via
metalinks (i.e., roads) according to a metagraph structure (i.e., the traffic
infrastructure). The problem of containing the propagation of an epidemic
outbreak in a metapopulation model by controlling the traffic between
subpopulations is considered. Controlling the spread of an epidemic outbreak
can be written as a spectral condition involving the eigenvalues of a matrix
that depends on the network structure and the parameters of the model. Based on
this spectral condition, we propose a convex optimization framework to find
cost-optimal approaches to traffic control in epidemic outbreaks.
