Stability analysis of an age-structured viral infection model with latency

Abstract

Age structure and cell-to-cell transmission are two major infection mechanisms in modeling spread of infectious diseases. We propose an age-structured viral infection model with latency, infection age-structure and cell-to-cell transmission. This paper aims to reveal the basic reproduction number and prove it to be a sharp threshold determining whether the infection dies out or not. Mathematical analysis is presented on relative compactness of the orbit, existence of a global attractor, and uniform persistence of system. We further investigate local and global stability of the infection-free and infection equilibrium.