Epidemic models with heterogeneous mixing and treatment

Fred Brauer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

63 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider a two-group epidemic model with treatment and establish a final size relation that gives the extent of the epidemic. This relation can be established with arbitrary mixing between the groups even though it may not be feasible to determine the reproduction number for the model. If the mixing of the two groups is proportionate, there is an explicit expression for the reproductive number and the final size relation is expressible in terms of the components of the reproduction number. We also extend the results to a two-group influenza model with proportionate mixing. Some numerical simulations suggest that (i) the assumption of no disease deaths is a good approximation if the disease death rate is small and (ii) a one-group model is a close approximation to a two-group model but a two-group model is necessary for comparing targeted treatment strategies.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1869-1885
Number of pages17
JournalBulletin of mathematical biology
Volume70
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Epidemic models
  • Final size relation
  • Heterogeneous mixing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • Immunology
  • General Mathematics
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Environmental Science
  • Pharmacology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics

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