Evolution of Virulence: a Unified Framework for Coinfection and Superinfection

Super- and Coinfection: The Two Extremes

“…Mosquera and Adler (1998) make the point that many previous models are based on the assumption that this coinfection function is discontinuous: even a marginally more virulent strain will immediately, and certainly, displace its less virulent predecessor (see, e.g., Nowak 1994, 1995;Van Baalen and Sabelis 1995a). Continuous coinfection functions produce different results.…”

“…Mosquera and Adler (1998) produced a unified model for multiple infections (by two strains), which yields both superinfection and coinfection (as well as single infection) as special cases (see also Chapter 10 in Dieckmann et al 2002). The long-term goal is, of course, to combine the full scenario of multiple infections in a single host with the adaptive dynamics for evolution within and among hosts.…”

Parasitism, the diversity of life, and paleoparasitology

“…Some parasites enhance their virulence and pathogenicity after serial passages and others attenuate. Single infection, coinfection, and superinfection are also considered (Mosquera & Adler 1998). Parasites that alter the host behavior, making the host susceptible to predation, may eliminate and be eliminated or, on the contrary, adapt to a new host.…”

Analysis of a vaccine model with cross-immunity: When can two competing infectious strains coexist?

“…the vaccine confers complete crossprotection). Several models have been proposed that weaken this assumption; the simplest alternative is to allow for super-infection [6,22], i.e. an individual infected with one strain gets infected with another strain which may lead to an instantaneous (if we neglect the inevitable phase during which the two strains will coexist in the individual) replacement of the intial strain.…”

“…an individual is infected with several strains at the same time, whether this occurs because of new infections [22] or because of within-host virus mutations, as usual for HIV [23]. It is intuitive that, in this case, strain coexistence without vaccination would be usual, but mathematical models accounting for such phenomena, and amenable to analytical methods, are still at a preliminary stage [24].…”