Effect of a sharp change of the incidence function on the dynamics of a simple disease

Abstract

We investigate two cases of a sharp change of incidencec functions on the dynamics of a susceptibleinfective- susceptible epidemic model. In the first case, low population levels have mass action incidence, while high population levels have proportional incidence, the switch occurring when the total population reaches a certain threshold. Using a modified Dulac theorem, we prove that this system has a single equilibrium which attracts all solutions for which the disease is present and the population remains bounded. In the second case, an increase of the number of infectives leads to a mass action term being added to a standard incidence term.We show that this allows a Hopf bifurcation to occur, with periodic orbits being generated when a locally asymptotically stable equilibrium loses stability. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.