Spatial Models of Vector-Host Epidemics with Directed Movement of Vectors Over Long Distances

TL;DR

This paper develops a spatial reaction-diffusion-advection model for vector-host epidemics with long-distance vector movement, demonstrating how wind-aided vector dispersal can facilitate disease spread over large areas.

Contribution

It introduces a novel PDE model with directed vector movement across non-overlapping host regions, analyzing its long-term behavior and applying it to bluetongue disease outbreak simulation.

Findings

Long-range vector movement increases disease transmission to distant hosts.

The model predicts outbreak patterns consistent with real bluetongue disease spread.

Directed vector movement significantly impacts epidemic dynamics.

Abstract

We investigate a time-dependent spatial vector-host epidemic model with non-coincident domains for the vector and host populations. The host population resides in small non-overlapping sub-regions, while the vector population resides throughout a much larger region. The dynamics of the populations are modeled by a reaction-diffusion-advection compartmental system of partial differential equations. The disease is transmitted through vector and host populations in criss-cross fashion. We establish global well-posedness and uniform a prior bounds as well as the long-term behavior. The model is applied to simulate the outbreak of bluetongue disease in sheep transmitted by midges infected with bluetongue virus. We show that the long-range directed movement of the midge population, due to wind-aided movement, enhances the transmission of the disease to sheep in distant sites.