A deterministic model of schistosomiasis with spatial structure
It has been observed in several settings that schistosomiasis is lessprevalent in segments of river with fast current than in those with slow current.Some believe that this can be attributed to flush-away of intermediate hostsnails. However, free-swimming parasite larvae are very active in searching...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
AIMS Press
2008-05-01
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| Series: | Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.aimspress.com/article/doi/10.3934/mbe.2008.5.505 |
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| Summary: | It has been observed in several settings that schistosomiasis is lessprevalent in segments of river with fast current than in those with slow current.Some believe that this can be attributed to flush-away of intermediate hostsnails. However, free-swimming parasite larvae are very active in searching forsuitable hosts, which indicates that the flush-away of larvae may also be veryimportant. In this paper, the authors establish a model with spatial structurethat characterizes the density change of parasites following the flush-away oflarvae. It is shown that the reproductive number, which is an indicator ofprevalence of parasitism, is a decreasing function of the river current velocity.Moreover, numerical simulations suggest that the mean parasite load is lowwhen the velocity of river current flow is sufficiently high. |
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| ISSN: | 1551-0018 |