Ticks, Deer, Mice, and a Touch of Sensitivity: August 12, 2013 A Recipe for Controlling Lyme Disease Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto is a bacterial spirochete prevalent in the Northeastern United States that causes Lyme disease. Lyme disease is the most common arthropod borne disease in the United States; a ecting mice, deer, humans and other mammals. The disease is spread by Ixodes Scapularis, a species of tick whose primary food source are deer and mice. Reducing the population of ticks feeding on both large and small mammals below some critical threshold can decrease the prevalence of Lyme disease among humans. A simpli ed, six dimensional Susceptible Infected, SI, model is used to capture the mice deer tick dynamics while considering the impact of varying population speci c death rates on infected population size. We analyzed the stability of the models two equilibria, the unstable disease free equilibrium and the endemic equilibrium. Static forward sensitivity analysis is conducted on the basic reproduction number and the endemic equilibrium. A dynamic approach was explored to observe change in the sensitivity of the death rates over time. These analyses were conducted to determine the ecacy of changing death rates in order to reduce prevalence of Lyme disease. Full article @ arxiv.org/pdf/1308.2190.pdf
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 05:59:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015