An SEIS epidemic model with transport-related infection

• Published in: Journal of theoretical biology Vol. 247; no. 3; pp. 507 - 524
• Main Authors: Wan, Hui, Cui, Jing ′an
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 07.08.2007
• Subjects: Basic reproduction number; Carrier State; Communicable Disease Control; Communicable Diseases - transmission; Disease Outbreaks; Disease Susceptibility; Disease Transmission, Infectious; Endemic Diseases - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Models, Statistical; Population Dynamics; SEIS epidemic model; Stability; Transport-related infection; Travel; Basic reproduction number; Stability; SEIS epidemic model; Transport-related infection
• ISSN: 0022-5193; 1095-8541
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.03.032

In this paper, an SEIS epidemic model is proposed to study the effect of transport-related infection on the spread and control of infectious disease. New result implies that traveling of the exposed (means exposed but not yet infectious) individuals can bring disease from one region to other regions even if the infectious individuals are inhibited from traveling among regions. It is shown that transportation among regions will change the disease dynamics and break infection out even if infectious diseases will go to extinction in each isolated region without transport-related infection. In addition, our analysis shows that transport-related infection intensifies the disease spread if infectious diseases break out to cause an endemic situation in each region, in the sense of that both the absolute and relative size of patients increase. This suggests that it is very essential to strengthen restrictions of passengers once we know infectious diseases appeared.