The dynamics of bacterial infections

Abstract

Many researchers studying infectious diseases have come to the conclusion that infections due to bacteria, as well as other pathogenic agents, can usefully be viewed as a biological process which consists of the interaction between two populations, namely, the parasite population and the host population. During an epidemic or endemic period these two populations undergo fluctuations in size which are interrelated in a dynamic manner. Some researchers have attempted to explain these fluctuations on intuitive grounds, while others have based their analyses on a mathematical framework describing the dynamics of the interaction between the two populations. We shall briefly refer to some of these latter types of studies, which are of direct relevance to the dynamics of bacterial infections.