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Deterministic and stochastic epidemics with several kinds of susceptibles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2016

Frank Ball*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
*
Postal address: Department of Mathematics, The University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.

Abstract

We consider the spread of a general epidemic amongst a population consisting of invididuals with differing susceptibilities to the disease. Deterministic and stochastic versions of the basic model are described and analysed. For both versions of the model we show that assuming a uniform susceptible population, with average susceptibility, leads to an increased spread of infection. We also show how our results can be extended to the carrier-borne epidemic model of Weiss (1965).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1985 

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Footnotes

Research carried out in part at the University of Reading.

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