Analysis of a viral infection model with delayed immune response

Abstract

It is well known that the immune response plays an important role in eliminating or controlling the disease after human body is infected by virus. In this paper, we investigate the dynamical behavior of a viral infection model with retarded immune response. The effect of time delay on stability of the equilibria of the system has been studied and sufficient condition for local asymptotic stability of the infected equilibrium and global asymptotic stability of the infection-free equilibrium and the immune-exhausted equilibrium are given. By numerical simulating,we observe that the stationary solution becomes unstable at some critical immune response time, while the delay time and birth rate of susceptible host cells increase, and we also discover the occurrence of stable periodic solutions and chaotic dynamical behavior. The results can be used to explain the complexity of the immune state of patients. © 2009 Elsevier Inc.