A fully coupled, mechanistic model for infectious disease dynamics in a metapopulation: Movement and epidemic duration

Authored by M Jesse, P Ezanno, S Davis, J A P Heesterbeek

Date Published: 2008

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2008.05.038

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: Fortran

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: https://ars-els-cdn-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/content/image/1-s2.0-S0022519308002968-mmc1.txt

Abstract

The drive to understand the invasion, spread and fade out of infectious disease in structured populations has produced a variety of mathematical models for pathogen dynamics in metapopulations. Very rarely are these models fully coupled, by which we mean that the spread of an infection within a subpopulation affects the transmission between subpopulations and vice versa. It is also rare that these models are accessible to biologists, in the sense that all parameters have a clear biological meaning and the biological assumptions are explained. Here we present an accessible model that is fully coupled without being an individual-based model. We use the model to show that the duration of an epidemic has a highly non-linear relationship with the movement rate between subpopulations, with a peak in epidemic duration appearing at small movement rates and a global maximum at large movement rates. Intuitively, the first peak is due to asynchrony in the dynamics of infection between subpopulations; we confirm this intuition and also show the peak coincides with successful invasion of the infection into most subpopulations. The global maximum at relatively large movement rates occurs because then the infectious agent perceives the metapopulation as if it is a single well-mixed population wherein the effective population size is greater than the critical community size. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tags

Conservation ecology transmission Populations Mouth-disease Virus Spread Persistence Synchrony Extinction times