On the effect of postponing pregnancy in a Zika transmission model

Abstract

We construct a Zika transmission model to investigate the effect of postponing pregnancy on the infection intensity. We perform analytical and numerical investigations for deterministic and stochastic analysis to obtain the basic reproductive ratio, endemic state, probability of disease extinction, and the probability of outbreak. The results indicate that by reducing the pregnancy rate the mosquito-to-human ratio increases, and, consequently, the basic reproductive ratio increases. Simultaneously, the probability of disease extinction decreases, and the probability of disease outbreak increases. On the other hand, the endemic state of infected infants initially increases with the decrease of the pregnancy recruitment rate, up to a certain level, and decreases as the recruitment rate of pregnancy tends to zero. This work highlights that postponing pregnancy that gives the individual temporary protection for unexpected infected newborns may increase the population infectivity.