On state-space reduction in multi-strain pathogen models, with an application to antigenic drift in influenza A.

ABSTRACT: Many pathogens exist in phenotypically distinct strains that interact with each other through competition for hosts. General models that describe such multi-strain systems are extremely difficult to analyze because their state spaces are enormously large. Reduced models have been proposed, but so far all of them necessarily allow for coinfections and require that immunity be mediated solely by reduced infectivity, a potentially problematic assumption. Here, we suggest a new state-space reduction approach that allows immunity to be mediated by either reduced infectivity or reduced susceptibility and that can naturally be used for models with or without coinfections. Our approach utilizes the general framework of status-based models. The cornerstone of our method is the introduction of immun

SUBMITTER: Kryazhimskiy S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1949840 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature