Non-periodic outbreaks of recurrent epidemics and its network modelling.

ABSTRACT: The study of recurrent epidemic outbreaks has been attracting great attention for decades, but its underlying mechanism is still under debate. Based on a large number of real data from different cities, we find that besides the seasonal periodic outbreaks of influenza, there are also non-periodic outbreaks, i.e. non-seasonal or non-annual behaviors. To understand how the non-periodicity shows up, we present a network model of SIRS epidemic with both time-dependent infection rate and a small possibility of persistent epidemic seeds, representing the influences from the larger annual variation of environment and the infection generated spontaneously in nature, respectively. Our numerical simulations reveal that the model can reproduce the non-periodic outbreaks of recurrent epidemics with th

SUBMITTER: Zheng M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4629194 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature