Vector Consumption and Contact Process Saturation in Sylvatic Transmission of T. cruzi

Christopher Kribs-Zaleta

Mathematical Population Studies, 2006, vol. 13, issue 3, 135-152

Abstract: Recent research in the transmission of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, some strains of which cause Chagas' disease, suggests that consumption of vectors by sylvatic hosts such as raccoons may play a role in maintaining the transmission cycle in the wild. As both hosts and vectors have been observed to invade new ecological niches, it is important to consider the effect vector consumption may have on vector density. For this reason a per individual contact rate is employed which rises roughly linearly for low vector densities and saturates for high densities. The model under study thus superimposes a predator-prey structure on a host-vector infection cycle (with first one, and then multiple, hosts). Outbreak behavior follows classical threshold behavior through the reproductive number R0, which allows evaluation of the importance of this transmission avenue relative to the traditional route. For sufficiently sharp contact rate saturation, two locally stable vector densities may exist.

Keywords: Chagas' disease; contact rate saturation; predator-prey; vector consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08898480600788576 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:mpopst:v:13:y:2006:i:3:p:135-152

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GMPS20

DOI: 10.1080/08898480600788576

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematical Population Studies is currently edited by Prof. Noel Bonneuil, Annick Lesne, Tomasz Zadlo, Malay Ghosh and Ezio Venturino

More articles in Mathematical Population Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().