The Impact of Coinfections and Their Simultaneous Transmission on Antigenic Diversity and Epidemic Cycling of Infectious Diseases
Figure 4
Impact of simultaneous transmission of coinfections and antigenic diversity on the critical value of the efficiency of partial transmission from coinfections for cyclic epidemics. Other model parameter values are years, day−1, and years. In panel (a) two situations are shown: two and ten strains circulate within the human population. For , the solid blue line represents the results for and the dashed red line for day−1 and day−1. The black line represents the threshold condition for the second strain to successfully invade and coexist with strain 1. Since empirical patterns of incidence time series are very irregular, distinguishing between chaotic and cyclical epidemics is not important so we lump them together as chaotic/cyclical epidemics and just mention them as cyclical epidemics in text. In panels (a) and (b) infectious period = 2 days and for single infection. In panels (b) and (c) different combinations of simultaneous transmission rates of coinfections are assumed. In panel (c) the basic reproductive number of single infection varies by altering the infectious period. Panel (d) shows the interepidemic periods in years when they first emerge under the three different simultaneous transmissions of various coinfections in panel (c).
