Autore
Schinaia, Giuseppe

Titolo
Epidemics and immigration: endemicities chaos and control
Periodico
Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" - Dipartimento di Studi Geoeconomici, Linguistici, Statistici e Storici per l'Analisi regionale. Working papers
Anno: 2005 - Fascicolo: 27B - Pagina iniziale: 1 - Pagina finale: 29

Only few of the many epidemic models in the literature include the immigration dynamics of the infectives in their structure; however, this is sometimes an imprescindable feature to fully understand and explain the velocity and the amplitude of the diffusion of important infections such as hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and many others, both at the start of an epidemic and during its invasion of the reference population. The inclusion of the dynamics of individuals external to a local population is a challenge for the modelling work, since relevant assumptions must be formulated in order to produce coherent results and such assumptions are bound to heavily influence the modelling structure. Starting from a model existing in the literature, progressively complex immigration dynamics are here introduced in a SIR model on the basis of the ability of a local population to control and select the admission of external individuals. The consequent modifications of the structure of the SIR model and of the classical results on its equilibria are then studied and analyzed, also in view of some recent global epidemics and of related public health measures. The results show a highly chaotic system whose endemic levels depend on interactions between immigration flows and internal demographic dynamics of the host population so that, when infectious immigration is present, classical remedies such as quarantine or some schemes of selective screening may not always succeed in eradicating the disease or even reducing its level of endemicity.




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