Emergence of Persistent Infection due to Heterogeneity

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in initial populations influences the persistence of infection in an SIRS model, revealing that heterogeneity can sustain infection even when uniform populations do not.

Contribution

It demonstrates that initial heterogeneity in population states can lead to persistent infections, a phenomenon not observed in uniform populations, and quantifies this effect.

Findings

Heterogeneity facilitates sustained infection by de-synchronizing disease phases.

Uniform populations do not sustain infection from a single contagious seed.

Even small susceptible groups in heterogeneous populations can lead to persistent infection.

Abstract

We explore the emergence of persistent infection in a patch of population, where the disease progression of the individuals is given by the SIRS model and an individual becomes infected on contact with another infected individual. We investigate the persistence of contagion qualitatively and quantitatively, under varying degrees of heterogeneity in the initial population. We observe that when the initial population is uniform, consisting of individuals at the same stage of disease progression, infection arising from a contagious seed does not persist. However when the initial population consists of randomly distributed refractory and susceptible individuals, a single source of infection can lead to sustained infection in the population, as heterogeneity facilitates the de-synchronization of the phases in the disease cycle of the individuals. We also show how the average size of the window of persistence of infection depends on the degree of heterogeneity in the initial composition of the population. In particular, we show that the infection eventually dies out when the entire initial population is susceptible, while even a few susceptibles among an heterogeneous refractory population gives rise to a large persistent infected set.