Evolutionary Outcomes of Human Infectious Diseases
Abstract
Recently it has been shown that a simple model was able to reproduce the main "types" of infectious diseases encountered in human populations. This model takes into account key features of the immune system at the within-host level and an implicit description of the contact network of the host population at the between-hosts level. The implicit description of contact network neglects population-level selective pressures such as fluctuations in the number of infected individuals potentially leading to risk of extinction. We present a nested model that allows to keep a within-host level description of immune processes while allowing an explicit description of the ongoing epidemiological dynamics. This model allows us to understand the impact of human population size and contact networks structure in shaping the fitness optima for pathogens life history traits. We mostly focus on variation in duration of infection and antigenic evolution leading to immune escape.
- Publication:
-
Icnaam 2010: International Conference of Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics 2010
- Pub Date:
- September 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.3498587
- Bibcode:
- 2010AIPC.1281..741B
- Keywords:
-
- diseases;
- fluctuations;
- stochastic systems;
- 87.19.X-;
- 87.15.Ya;
- 02.50.Fz;
- Diseases;
- Fluctuations;
- Stochastic analysis