  We consider the problem of controlling the propagation of an epidemic
outbreak in an arbitrary network of contacts by investing on disease awareness
throughout the network. We model the effect of agent awareness on the dynamics
of an epidemic using the SAIS epidemic model, an extension of the SIS epidemic
model that includes a state of "awareness". This model allows to derive a
condition to control the spread of an epidemic outbreak in terms of the
eigenvalues of a matrix that depends on the network structure and the
parameters of the model. We study the problem of finding the cost-optimal
investment on disease awareness throughout the network when the cost function
presents some realistic properties. We propose a convex framework to find
cost-optimal allocation of resources. We validate our results with numerical
simulations in a real online social network.
