Avian–human influenza epidemic model with diffusion, nonlocal delay and spatial homogeneous environment

Abstract

In this paper, an avian–human influenza epidemic model with diffusion, nonlocal delay and spatial homogeneous environment is investigated. This model describes the transmission of avian influenza among poultry, humans and environment. The behavior of positive solutions to a reaction–diffusion system with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions is investigated. By means of linearization method and spectral analysis the local asymptotical stability is established. The global asymptotical stability for the poultry sub-system is studied by spectral analysis and by using a Lyapunov functional. For the full system, the global stability of the disease-free equilibrium is studied using the comparison Theorem for parabolic equations. Our result shows that the disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable, whenever the contact rate for the susceptible poultry is small. This suggests that the best policy to prevent the occurrence of an epidemic is not only to exterminate the asymptomatic poultry but also to reduce the contact rate between susceptible humans and the poultry environment. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the main results.