Attila Dénes

Transmission Dynamics and Final Epidemic Size of Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks with Varying Interventions

The 2014 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa was the largest and longest ever reported since the first identification of this disease. We propose a compartmental model for EVD dynamics, including virus transmission in the community, at hospitals, and at funerals. Using time-dependent parameters, we incorporate the increasing intensity of intervention efforts. Fitting the system to the early phase of the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, we estimate the basic reproduction number as 1.44. We derive a final size relation which allows us to forecast the total number of cases during the outbreak when effective interventions are in place. Our model predictions show that, as long as cases are reported in any country, intervention strategies cannot be dismissed. Since the main driver in the current slowdown of the epidemic is not the depletion of susceptibles, future waves of infection might be possible, if control measures or population behavior are relaxed.

Impact of Excess Mortality on the Dynamics of Diseases Spread by Ectoparasites

In this chapter, we generalize our earlier model for the spread of ectoparasites and diseases transmitted by them by including disease-induced mortality. The qualitative behavior of the system is similar to that of the original model: three reproduction numbers determine which of the four possible equilibria is globally asymptotically stable. We conclude that a moderate mortality decreases the size of the population, while a high mortality leads to the eradication of the infection. The main tools used for the proofs include persistence theory, Lyapunov–LaSalle theory and Dulac’s criteria.

Global dynamics of a mathematical model for the possible re-emergence of polio

Motivated by studies warning about a possible re-emergence of poliomyelitis in Europe, we analyse a compartmental model for the transmission of polio describing the possible effect of unvaccinated people arriving to a region with low vaccination coverage. We calculate the basic reproduction number, and determine the global dynamics of the system: we show that, depending on the parameters, one of the two equilibria is globally asymptotically stable. The main tools applied are Lyapunov functions and persistence theory. We illustrate the analytic results by numerical examples, which also suggest that in order to avoid the risk of polio re-emergence, vaccinating the immigrant population might result insufficient, and also the vaccination coverage of countries with low rates should be increased.

Global stability of a multistrain SIS model with superinfection

In this paper, we study the global stability of a multistrain SIS model with superinfection. We present an iterative procedure to calculate a sequence of reproduction numbers, and we prove that it completely determines the global dynamics of the system. We show that for any number of strains with different infectivities, the stable coexistence of any subset of the strains is possible, and we completely characterize all scenarios. As an example, we apply our method to a three-strain model.

Risk of Infectious Disease Outbreaks by Imported Cases with Application to the European Football Championship 2012

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control called the attention in March 2012 to the risk of measles in Ukraine among visitors to the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship. Large populations of supporters travelled to various locations in Poland and Ukraine, depending on the schedule of Euro 2012 and the outcome of the games, possibly carrying the disease from one location to another. In the present study, we propose a novel two-phase multitype branching process model with immigration to describe the risk of a major epidemic in connection with large-scale sports-related mass gathering events. By analytic means, we calculate the expected number and the variance of imported cases and the probability of a major epidemic caused by the imported cases in their home country. Applying our model to the case study of Euro 2012 we demonstrate that the results of the football games can be highly influential to the risk of measles outbreaks in the home countries of supporters. To prevent imported epidemics, it should be emphasized that vaccinating travellers would most efficiently reduce the risk of epidemic, while requiring the minimum doses of vaccines as compared to other vaccination strategies. Our theoretical framework can be applied to other future sport tournaments too.