  In many real-world complex systems, individuals have many kind of
interactions among them, suggesting that it is necessary to consider a layered
structure framework to model systems such as social interactions. This
structure can be captured by multilayer networks and can have major effects on
the spreading of process that occurs over them, such as epidemics. In this
Letter we study a targeted immunization strategy for epidemic spreading over a
multilayer network. We apply the strategy in one of the layers and study its
effect in all layers of the network disregarding degree-degree correlation
among layers. We found that the targeted strategy is not as efficient as in
isolated networks, due to the fact that in order to stop the spreading of the
disease it is necessary to immunize more than the 80 % of the individuals.
However, the size of the epidemic is drastically reduced in the layer where the
immunization strategy is applied compared to the case with no mitigation
strategy. Thus, the immunization strategy has a major effect on the layer were
it is applied, but does not efficiently protect the individuals of other
layers.

Physics and Society;Social and Information Networks;Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems