On the Qualitative Behaviour of SIR Epidemics with Generalized Infection Rate Functions

Abstract

We consider an SIR stochastic epidemic model in which new infection occurs at rate f(n)(x,y), where x and y are respectively the number of susceptibles and infectives at time of infection and f(n) is a positive sequence of real functions. Threshold theorems analogous to those of Whittle and Williams are fairly proved for this model. Also we examine the shape of the total size distribution for various values of removal rate and suitable values of other important parameters