Analysis of an epidemic model with awareness decay on regular random networks

The existence of a die-out threshold (di erent from the classic disease-invasion one) defining a region of slow extinction of an epidemic has been proved elsewhere for susceptible-aware-infectious-susceptible models without awareness decay, through bifurcation analysis. By means of an equivalent mea...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Juher, David|||0000-0001-5440-1705, Kiss, Istvan Z., Saldaña, Joan|||0000-0001-6174-8029
Format: article
Publication Date:2015
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:145327
Online Access:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/145327
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2014.10.013
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Epidemic thresholds
Network epidemic models
Preventive behavioural responses
Description
Summary:The existence of a die-out threshold (di erent from the classic disease-invasion one) defining a region of slow extinction of an epidemic has been proved elsewhere for susceptible-aware-infectious-susceptible models without awareness decay, through bifurcation analysis. By means of an equivalent mean-field model defined on regular random networks, we interpret the dynamics of the system in this region and prove that the existence of bifurcation for of this second epidemic threshold crucially depends on the absence of awareness decay. We show that the continuum of equilibria that characterizes the slow die-out dynamics collapses into a unique equilibrium when a constant rate of awareness decay is assumed, no matter how small, and that the resulting bifurcation from the disease-free equilibrium is equivalent to that of standard epidemic models. We illustrate these findings with continuous-time stochastic simulations on regular random networks with different degrees. Finally, the behaviour of solutions with and without decay in awareness is compared around the second epidemic threshold for a small rate of awareness decay.