We construct a stochastic model ofbacteriophage parasitism of a host bacteria that accounts fordemographic stochasticity of host and parasite and allows formultiple bacteriophage adsorption to host. We analyze the associateddeterministic model, identifying the basic reproductive number forphage proliferation, showing that host and phage persist when itexceeds unity, and establishing that the distribution of adsorbedphage on a host is binomial with slowly evolving mean. Notsurprisingly, extinction of the parasite or both host and parasitecan occur for the stochastic model.
