Many scientific researches have demonstrated that bats can survive Ebola virus and they represent natural reservoirs of this zoonotic virus. In this study, we develop a generalized epizootic model for the transmission dynamics of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in bat population by taking into account the environment contamination. The transmission process is modeled by two general incidence functions that include many incidence rates used in infectious diseases modeling. We first prove that the model is epidemiologically and mathematically well-posed by showing the existence, positivity, and boundedness of solutions. By analyzing the characteristic equations and constructing suitable Lyapunov functionals, the stability analysis of equilibria is investigated.
IntroductionStudying antibody dynamics following re-exposure to infection and/or vaccination is crucial for a better understanding of fundamental immunological processes, vaccine development, and health policy research.MethodsWe adopted a nonlinear mixed modeling approach based on ordinary differential equations (ODE) to characterize varicella-zoster virus specific antibody dynamics during and after clinical herpes zoster. Our ODEs models convert underlying immunological processes into mathematical formulations, allowing for testable data analysis. In order to cope with inter- and intra-individual variability, mixed models include population-averaged parameters (fixed effects) and individual-specific parameters (random effects). We explored the use of various ODE-based nonlinear mixed models to describe longitudinally collected markers of immunological response in 61 herpes zoster patients.ResultsStarting from a general formulation of such models, we study different plausible processes underlying observed antibody titer concentrations over time, including various individual-specific parameters. Among the converged models, the best fitting and most parsimonious model implies that once Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) reactivation is clinically apparent (i.e., Herpes-zoster (HZ) can be diagnosed), short-living and long-living antibody secreting cells (SASC and LASC, respectively) will not expand anymore. Additionally, we investigated the relationship between age and viral load on SASC using a covariate model to gain a deeper understanding of the population’s characteristics.ConclusionThe results of this study provide crucial and unique insights that can aid in improving our understanding of VZV antibody dynamics and in making more accurate projections regarding the potential impact of vaccines.
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