We introduce a model for assessing the levels and patterns of genetic diversity in pathogen populations, whose epidemiology follows a susceptible-infected-recovered model (SIR). We model the population of pathogens as a metapopulation composed of subpopulations (infected hosts), where pathogens replicate and mutate. Hosts transmit pathogens to uninfected hosts. We show that the level of pathogen variation is we...
The all-time low incidence of measles in Portugal in the recent years, raises questions regarding whether the disease has been eliminated, the role of recent control measures, and the epidemiological consequences of the rise in the proportion of newborns to vaccinated mothers, as opposed to those born to mothers who acquired immunity by natural infection. We estimate the vaccination coverage against measles in ...
Heterogeneity in susceptibility and infectivity is inherent to infectious disease transmission in nature. Here we are concerned with the formulation of mathematical models that capture the essence of heterogeneity while keeping a simple structure suitable of analytical treatment. We explore the consequences of host heterogeneity in the susceptibility to infection for epidemiological models for which immunity co...
We first study an SIR system of differential equations with periodic coefficients describing an epidemic in a seasonal environment. Unlike in a constant environment, the final epidemic size may not be an increasing function of the basic reproduction number ℛ0 or of the initial fraction of infected people. Moreover, large epidemics can happen even if ℛ0<1. But like in a constant environment, the final epidemic s...
BACKGROUND: Clinical management of malaria is a major health issue in sub-Saharan Africa. New strategies based on intermittent preventive treatment (IPT) can tackle disease burden by simultaneously reducing frequency of infections and life-threatening illness in infants (IPTi) and children (IPTc), while allowing for immunity to build up. However, concerns as to whether immunity develops efficiently in treated i...
BACKGROUND: A characteristic of Plasmodium falciparum infections is the gradual acquisition of clinical immunity resulting from repeated exposures to the parasite. While the molecular basis of protection against clinical malaria remains unresolved, its effects on epidemiological patterns are well recognized. Accumulating epidemiological data constitute a valuable resource that must be intensively explored and i...
Physical systems often exhibit pattern-forming instabilities. Equivariant bifurcation theory is often used to investigate the existence and stability of spatially doubly periodic solutions with respect to the hexagonal lattice. Previous studies have focused on the six- and twelve-dimensional representation of the hexagonal lattice where the symmetry of the model is perfect. Here, perturbation of group orbits of...
We study perturbations of cubic planforms, proving there exists perturbations with homoclinic cycles between persistent steady states. Our results do not depend on the representation of the symmetry group of the lattice, and are thus quite general. . The problem is studied using group theory rather than direct methods. We use the abstract action of the symmetry group of the perturbation on the group orbit to d...
One-third of the world population (approximately 2 billion individuals) is currently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the vast majority harboring a latent infection. As the risk of reactivation is around 10% in a lifetime, it follows that 200 million of these will eventually develop active pulmonary disease. Only therapeutic or post-exposure interventions can tame this vast reservoir of infection. Trea...
The awareness that pathogens can adapt and evolve over relatively short time-scales is changing our view of infectious disease epidemiology and control. Research on the transmission dynamics of antigenically diverse pathogens is progressing and there is increasing recognition for the need of new concepts and theories. Mathematical models have been developed considering the modelling unit in two extreme scales: ...
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