Localization, epidemic transitions, and unpredictability of multistrain epidemics with an underlying genotype network

7Citations
Citations of this article
10Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Mathematical disease modelling has long operated under the assumption that any one infectious disease is caused by one transmissible pathogen spreading among a population. This paradigm has been useful in simplifying the biological reality of epidemics and has allowed the modelling community to focus on the complexity of other factors such as population structure and interventions. However, there is an increasing amount of evidence that the strain diversity of pathogens, and their interplay with the host immune system, can play a large role in shaping the dynamics of epidemics. Here, we introduce a disease model with an underlying genotype network to account for two important mechanisms. One, the disease can mutate along network pathways as it spreads in a host population. Two, the genotype network allows us to define a genetic distance between strains and therefore to model the transcendence of immunity often observed in real world pathogens. We study the emergence of epidemics in this model, through its epidemic phase transitions, and highlight the role of the genotype network in driving cyclicity of diseases, large scale fluctuations, sequential epidemic transitions, as well as localization around specific strains of the associated pathogen. More generally, our model illustrates the richness of behaviours that are possible even in well-mixed host populations once we consider strain diversity and go beyond the “one disease equals one pathogen” paradigm.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Williams, B. J. M., St-Onge, G., & Hébert-Dufresne, L. (2021). Localization, epidemic transitions, and unpredictability of multistrain epidemics with an underlying genotype network. PLoS Computational Biology, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PCBI.1008606

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free