On the asymptotic distribution of the maximum number of infectives in epidemic models by immigration

1994 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 606-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. M. Abramov

This paper considers the asymptotic distribution of the maximum number of infectives in an epidemic model by showing that, as the initial number of susceptibles converges to infinity, the process of infectives converges almost surely to a birth and death process. The model studied here is more general than usual (see e.g. Bailey (1975), Bharucha-Reid (1960), Keilson (1979)) in that it incorporates immigration and the limiting birth and death process is non-linear. The main novelty of the present paper is the martingale approach used to prove the above-mentioned convergence.

1994 ◽  
Vol 31 (03) ◽  
pp. 606-613
Author(s):  
V. M. Abramov

This paper considers the asymptotic distribution of the maximum number of infectives in an epidemic model by showing that, as the initial number of susceptibles converges to infinity, the process of infectives converges almost surely to a birth and death process. The model studied here is more general than usual (see e.g. Bailey (1975), Bharucha-Reid (1960), Keilson (1979)) in that it incorporates immigration and the limiting birth and death process is non-linear. The main novelty of the present paper is the martingale approach used to prove the above-mentioned convergence.


1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Ball ◽  
Philip O'Neill

This paper is concerned with a model for the spread of an epidemic in a closed, homogeneously mixing population in which new infections occur at rate f(x, y) and removals occur at rate g(x, y), where x and y are the numbers of susceptible and infective individuals, respectively, and f and g are arbitrary but specified positive real-valued functions. Sequences of such epidemics, indexed by the initial number of susceptibles n, are considered and conditions are derived under which the epidemic processes converge almost surely to a birth and death process as n tends to infinity. Thus a threshold theorem for such an epidemic model is obtained. The results are extended to models which incorporate immigration and emigration of susceptibles. The theory is illustrated by several examples of models taken from the epidemic literature. Generalizations to multipopulation epidemics are discussed briefly.


1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (03) ◽  
pp. 629-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Ball ◽  
Philip O'Neill

This paper is concerned with a model for the spread of an epidemic in a closed, homogeneously mixing population in which new infections occur at rate f(x, y) and removals occur at rate g(x, y), where x and y are the numbers of susceptible and infective individuals, respectively, and f and g are arbitrary but specified positive real-valued functions. Sequences of such epidemics, indexed by the initial number of susceptibles n, are considered and conditions are derived under which the epidemic processes converge almost surely to a birth and death process as n tends to infinity. Thus a threshold theorem for such an epidemic model is obtained. The results are extended to models which incorporate immigration and emigration of susceptibles. The theory is illustrated by several examples of models taken from the epidemic literature. Generalizations to multipopulation epidemics are discussed briefly.


1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 448-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip O'Neill

This paper considers a class of epidemic models in which susceptibles may enter or leave the population according to a general continuous time density dependent Markov chain. A sequence of such epidemics indexed by N, the initial number of susceptibles, is constructed on the same probability space as a time-inhomogeneous birth-and-death process. A coupling argument is then used to demonstrate the strong convergence of the sequence of infectives to the birth-and-death process. This result is used to provide a threshold analysis of the epidemic model in question.


1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (02) ◽  
pp. 448-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip O'Neill

This paper considers a class of epidemic models in which susceptibles may enter or leave the population according to a general continuous time density dependent Markov chain. A sequence of such epidemics indexed by N, the initial number of susceptibles, is constructed on the same probability space as a time-inhomogeneous birth-and-death process. A coupling argument is then used to demonstrate the strong convergence of the sequence of infectives to the birth-and-death process. This result is used to provide a threshold analysis of the epidemic model in question.


1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 544-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels G. Becker

To explain the growth of interacting populations, non-linear models need to be proposed and it is this non-linearity which proves to be most awkward in attempts at solving the resulting differential equations. A model with a particular non-linear component, initially proposed by Weiss (1965) for the spread of a carrier-borne epidemic, was solved completely by different methods by Dietz (1966) and Downton (1967). Immigration parameters were added to the model of Weiss and the resulting model was made the subject of a paper by Dietz and Downton (1968). It is the aim here to further generalize the model by introducing birth and death parameters so that the result is a linear birth and death process with immigration for each population plus the non-linear interaction component.


1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (03) ◽  
pp. 671-689
Author(s):  
Steven M. Butler

This paper describes the early and final properties of a general S–I–R epidemic process in which the infectives behave independently, each infective has a random number of contacts with the others in the population, and individuals vary in their susceptibility to infection. For the case of a large initial number of susceptibles and a small (finite) initial number of infectives, we derive the threshold behavior and the limiting distribution for the final state of the epidemic. Also, we show strong convergence of the epidemic process over any finite time interval to a birth and death process, extending the results of Ball (1983). These complement some results due to Butler (1994), who considers the case of a large initial number of infectives.


1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Ball

We provide a method of constructing a sequence of general stochastic epidemics, indexed by the initial number of susceptibles N, from a time-homogeneous birth-and-death process. The construction is used to show strong convergence of the general stochastic epidemic to a birth-and-death process, over any finite time interval [0, t], and almost sure convergence of the total size of the general stochastic epidemic to that of a birth-and-death process. The latter result furnishes us with a new proof of the threshold theorem of Williams (1971). These methods are quite general and in the remainder of the paper we develop similar results for a wide variety of epidemics, including chain-binomial, host-vector and geographical spread models.


1990 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Lefèvre ◽  
György Michaletzky

Recently, Ball and Donnelly (1987) investigated the nature of the interparticle dependence in a death process with non-linear rates. In this note, after some remarks on their result, a similar problem is examined for a linear death process where the death rate per particle is a monotone function of the current state of a random environment. It is proved that if the exterior process involved is a homogeneous birth-and-death process valued in ℕ, then the survival times of any subset of particles are positively upper orthant dependent. A simple example shows that this property is not valid for general exterior processes.


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