Title: Within-host models unravelling the dynamics of dengue reinfections
Abstract: Caused by four serotypes, dengue fever is a major public health concern worldwide. Current modeling efforts have mostly focused on primary and heterologous secondary infections, assuming that lifelong immunity prevents reinfections by the same serotype. However, recent findings challenge this
assumption, prompting a reevaluation of dengue immunity dynamics. In this study, we develop a within-host modeling framework to explore different scenarios of dengue infections. Unlike previous studies, we go beyond a deterministic framework, considering individual immunological variability. Both deterministic and stochastic models are calibrated using empirical data on viral load and antibody (IgM and IgG) concentrations for all dengue serotypes, incorporating confidence intervals derived from stochastic realizations. With good agreement between the mean of the stochastic realizations and the mean field solution for each model, our approach not only successfully captures primary and heterologous secondary infection dynamics facilitated by antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) but also provides, for the first time, insights into homotypic reinfection dynamics. Our study discusses the relevance of homotypic reinfections in dengue transmission at the population level, highlighting potential
implications for disease prevention and control strategies [1].
References
[1] Anam, V., Guerrero, B.V, Srivastav A.K., Stollenwerk, N., Aguiar, M. (2024). Within-host models unravelling the dynamics of dengue reinfections. Infectious Disease Modelling, 9(2), 458-473
Bio: Dr Maíra Aguiar is a mathematical epidemiologist working on infectious disease dynamics. With a multidisciplinary research profile, is trained in dynamical systems theory, stochastic processes, nonlinear dynamics, bifurcation analysis and biostatistics and her scientific interests addresses significant mathematical and fundamental questions in biology and medicine, with special focus on public health epidemiology modeling. Dr Aguiar is a former Marie Curie Fellow at Trento University, Italy. Since 2020, Dr. Aguiar is based at the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics (BCAM – Bilbao), Spain, where she leads the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (MTB) group as an Ikerbasque & Ramon y Cajal Researcher. More info here: https://maira-aguiar.eu