  In the early stage of epidemics, individuals' determination on adopting
protective measures, which can reduce their risk of infection and suppress
disease spreading, is likely to depend on multiple information sources and
their mutual confirmation due to inadequate exact information. Here we
introduce the inter-layer mutual confirmation mechanism into the
information-disease interacting dynamics on multiplex networks. In our model,
an individual increases the information transmission rate and willingness to
adopt protective measures once he confirms the authenticity of news and
severity of disease from neighbors status in multiple layers. By using the
microscopic Markov chain approach, we analytically calculate the epidemic
threshold and the awareness and infected density in the stationary state, which
agree well with simulation results. We find that the increment of epidemic
threshold when confirming the aware neighbors on communication layer is larger
than that of the contact layer. On the contrary, the confirmation of neighbors'
awareness and infection from the contact layer leads to a lower final infection
density and a higher awareness density than that of the communication layer.
The results imply that individuals' explicit exposure of their infection and
awareness status to neighbors, especially those with real contacts, is helpful
in suppressing epidemic spreading.
