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Impact of Demography on the Dynamics of modelling infectious Diseases: Malaria as an example
Woldegebriel Assefa Woldegerima
In several infectious disease models, the demography (recruitment rates and death rates), is described using ad-hoc or generic population dynamics equations, mostly using constant rates. In the talk, we shall show that the choice of the latter can dramatically affect the results obtained from analysis of the model, and thus of the dynamics of the disease and therefore must be done with extreme care. Depending on the choice of the demography for the model can exhibit qualitatively different dynamical behaviours, which can have important epidemiological interpretations. As examples, we will show how the dynamics of a between-host malaria model are highly affected by the demography of the human and mosquitoes population. Moreover, consider how an in-host blood-stage mathematical model for malaria parasites is highly dependent on the choice of the demography of erythrocytes and immune cells.