Modeling and research on an immuno-epidemiological coupled system with coinfection (Q2051437)

In this paper, the authors study an immuno-epidemiological coupled model with coinfection by two strains. The model includes two scales: the within-host scale and the population scale. It is shown that in the former, only one strain can survive (the one with larger immunological reproduction number), while on the latter scale, coinfection is possible. Besides the immunological reproduction numbers, the authors define the epidemiological and invasion reproduction numbers. Besides the disease-free equilibrium, there exists a dominance equilibrium for both strains. Local stability of the equilibria is described depending on the epidemiological and invasion reproduction numbers. The coexistence equilibrium exists when all the reproduction numbers are greater than one. Numerical simulations suggest that bistability occurs with one of the strains persisting when both invasion reproduction numbers are smaller than one.