Viral kinetics have been extensively studied in the past through the use of
spatially homogeneous ordinary differential equations describing the time
evolution of the diseased state. However, spatial characteristics such as
localized populations of dead cells might adversely affect the spread of
infection, similar to the manner in which a counter-fire can stop a forest fire
from spreading. In order to investigate the influence of spatial
heterogeneities on viral spread, a simple 2-D cellular automaton (CA) model of
a viral infection has been developed. In this initial phase of the
investigation, the CA model is validated against clinical immunological data
for uncomplicated influenza A infections. Our results will be shown and
discussed.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, 18 EPS figures, uses document class ReTeX4, and
packages amsmath and SIunit