4,303 research outputs found
Endemicity and prevalence of multipartite viruses under heterogeneous between-host transmission
Multipartite viruses replicate through a puzzling evolutionary strategy.
Their genome is segmented into two or more parts, and encapsidated in separate
particles that appear to propagate independently. Completing the replication
cycle, however, requires the full genome, so that a systemic infection of a
host requires the concurrent presence of several particles. This represents an
apparent evolutionary drawback of multipartitism, while its advantages remain
unclear. A transition from monopartite to multipartite viral forms has been
described in vitro under conditions of high multiplicity of infection,
suggesting that cooperation between defective mutants is a plausible
evolutionary pathway towards multipartitism. However, it is unknown how the
putative advantages that multipartitism might enjoy at the microscopic level
affect its epidemiology, or if an explicit advantange is needed to explain its
ecological persistence. To disentangle which mechanisms might contribute to the
rise and fixation of multipartitism, we investigate the interaction between
viral spreading dynamics and host population structure. We set up a
compartmental model of the spread of a virus in its different forms and explore
its epidemiology using both analytical and numerical techniques. We uncover
that the impact of host contact structure on spreading dynamics entails a rich
phenomenology of ecological relationships that includes cooperation,
competition, and commensality. We find that multipartitism might rise to
fixation even in the absence of explicit microscopic advantages. Multipartitism
allows the virus to colonize environments that could not be invaded by the
monopartite form, facilitated by homogeneous contacts among hosts. We
conjecture that these features might have led to an increase in the diversity
and prevalence of multipartite viral forms concomitantly with the expansion of
agricultural practices.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Timing of Pathogen Adaptation to a Multicomponent Treatment
The sustainable use of multicomponent treatments such as combination
therapies, combination vaccines/chemicals, and plants carrying multigenic
resistance requires an understanding of how their population-wide deployment
affects the speed of the pathogen adaptation. Here, we develop a stochastic
model describing the emergence of a mutant pathogen and its dynamics in a
heterogeneous host population split into various types by the management
strategy. Based on a multi-type Markov birth and death process, the model can
be used to provide a basic understanding of how the life-cycle parameters of
the pathogen population, and the controllable parameters of a management
strategy affect the speed at which a pathogen adapts to a multicomponent
treatment. Our results reveal the importance of coupling stochastic mutation
and migration processes, and illustrate how their stochasticity can alter our
view of the principles of managing pathogen adaptive dynamics at the population
level. In particular, we identify the growth and migration rates that allow
pathogens to adapt to a multicomponent treatment even if it is deployed on only
small proportions of the host. In contrast to the accepted view, our model
suggests that treatment durability should not systematically be identified with
mutation cost. We show also that associating a multicomponent treatment with
defeated monocomponent treatments can be more durable than associating it with
intermediate treatments including only some of the components. We conclude that
the explicit modelling of stochastic processes underlying evolutionary dynamics
could help to elucidate the principles of the sustainable use of multicomponent
treatments in population-wide management strategies intended to impede the
evolution of harmful populations.Comment: 3 figure
INDEMICS: An Interactive High-Performance Computing Framework for Data Intensive Epidemic Modeling
We describe the design and prototype implementation of Indemics (_Interactive; Epi_demic; _Simulation;)—a modeling environment utilizing high-performance computing technologies for supporting complex epidemic simulations. Indemics can support policy analysts and epidemiologists interested in planning and control of pandemics. Indemics goes beyond traditional epidemic simulations by providing a simple and powerful way to represent and analyze policy-based as well as individual-based adaptive interventions. Users can also stop the simulation at any point, assess the state of the simulated system, and add additional interventions. Indemics is available to end-users via a web-based interface.
Detailed performance analysis shows that Indemics greatly enhances the capability and productivity of simulating complex intervention strategies with a marginal decrease in performance. We also demonstrate how Indemics was applied in some real case studies where complex interventions were implemented
Transition from endemic behavior to eradication of malaria due to combined drug therapies: an agent-model approach
We introduce an agent-based model describing a
susceptible-infectious-susceptible (SIS) system of humans and mosquitoes to
predict malaria epidemiological scenarios in realistic biological conditions.
Emphasis is given to the transition from endemic behavior to eradication of
malaria transmission induced by combined drug therapies acting on both the
gametocytemia reduction and on the selective mosquito mortality during parasite
development in the mosquito. Our mathematical framework enables to uncover the
critical values of the parameters characterizing the effect of each drug
therapy. Moreover, our results provide quantitative evidence of what is
empirically known: interventions combining gametocytemia reduction through the
use of gametocidal drugs, with the selective action of ivermectin during
parasite development in the mosquito, may actively promote disease eradication
in the long run. In the agent model, the main properties of human-mosquito
interactions are implemented as parameters and the model is validated by
comparing simulations with real data of malaria incidence collected in the
endemic malaria region of Chimoio in Mozambique. Finally, we discuss our
findings in light of current drug administration strategies for malaria
prevention, that may interfere with human-to-mosquito transmission process.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
Modelling environmentally-mediated infectious diseases of humans: transmission dynamics of schistosomiasis in China.
Macroparasites of humans are sensitive to a variety of environmental variables, including temperature, rainfall and hydrology, yet current comprehension of these relationships is limited. Given the incomplete mechanistic understanding of environment-disease interactions, mathematical models that describe them have seldom included the effects of time-varying environmental processes on transmission dynamics and where they have been included, simple generic, periodic functions are usually used. Few examples exist where seasonal forcing functions describe the actual processes underlying the environmental drivers of disease dynamics. Transmission of human schistosomes, which involves multiple environmental stages, offers a model for applying our understanding of the environmental determinants of the viability, longevity, infectivity and mobility of these stages to controlling disease in diverse environments. Here, a mathematical model of schistosomiasis transmission is presented which incorporates the effects of environmental variables on transmission. Model dynamics are explored and several key extensions to the model are proposed
On the dynamics of a class of multi-group models for vector-borne diseases
The resurgence of vector-borne diseases is an increasing public health
concern, and there is a need for a better understanding of their dynamics. For
a number of diseases, e.g. dengue and chikungunya, this resurgence occurs
mostly in urban environments, which are naturally very heterogeneous,
particularly due to population circulation. In this scenario, there is an
increasing interest in both multi-patch and multi-group models for such
diseases. In this work, we study the dynamics of a vector borne disease within
a class of multi-group models that extends the classical Bailey-Dietz model.
This class includes many of the proposed models in the literature, and it can
accommodate various functional forms of the infection force. For such models,
the vector-host/host-vector contact network topology gives rise to a bipartite
graph which has different properties from the ones usually found in directly
transmitted diseases. Under the assumption that the contact network is strongly
connected, we can define the basic reproductive number and show
that this system has only two equilibria: the so called disease free
equilibrium (DFE); and a unique interior equilibrium---usually termed the
endemic equilibrium (EE)---that exists if, and only if, . We
also show that, if , then the DFE equilibrium is globally
asymptotically stable, while when , we have that the EE is
globally asymptotically stable
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