Modelling macroparasitic diseases dynamics

TL;DR

This paper develops a general probabilistic framework for modeling macroparasitic disease transmission, focusing on parasites that do not reproduce within hosts, and analyzes their dynamics including bifurcations and heterogeneity effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel probabilistic modeling approach for macroparasite transmission, incorporating parasite density distributions and heterogeneity among hosts.

Findings

Derived the basic reproductive number for macroparasite models.

Identified saddle-node bifurcation at critical reproductive number.

Analyzed equilibria in heterogeneous host populations.

Abstract

In this work we present a general framework for the modeling of the transmission dynamics of macroparasites which do not reproduce within the host like Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Necator americanus y Ancylostoma duodenale. The basic models are derived from general probabilistic models for the parasite density-dependent mating probability. Here we considered the particular, and common case, of a negative binomial distribution for the number of parasites in hosts. We find the basic reproductive number and we show that the system exhibit a saddle-node bifurcation at some value of the basic reproduction number. We also found the equilibria and basic reproduction number of a model for the more general case of heteregeneous host populations.