Thresholds for macroparasite infections

Pugliese, Andrea and Tonetto, Lorenza (2003) Thresholds for macroparasite infections. UNSPECIFIED. (Unpublished)

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    Abstract

    We analyse here the equilibria of an infinite system of partial differential equations modelling the dynamics of a population infected by macroparasites. We find that it is possible to define a reproduction number R0 that satisfies the intuitive definition, and yields a sharp threshold in the behaviour of the system: when R0 < 1, the parasite-free equilibrium (PFE) is asymptotically stable and there are no endemic equilibria; when R0 > 1, the PFE is unstable and there exists a unique endemic equilibrium. The results mainly confirm what had been obtained in simplified models, except for the fact that no backwards bifurcation occur in this model. The stability of equilibria is established by extending an abstract linearization principle and by analysing the spectra of appropriate operators.

    Item Type: Departmental Technical Report
    Department or Research center: Mathematics
    Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA374.7 Partial differential equations
    Report Number: UTM 633, January 2003
    Repository staff approval on: 17 May 2005

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