Human Movement and Vector-Borne Diseases

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  Human Movement and Vector-Borne Diseases
  Omar Saucedo

  Vector-borne diseases affects approximately 1 billion people and accounts for 17% of all infectious diseases. With travel becoming more frequent across the world, it is important to understand how spatial dynamics impact the spread of the disease.  Human movement plays a key part on how a disease can be distributed as it enables a pathogen to invade a new environment, and helps the persistence of a disease in locations that would otherwise be isolated.  In this talk, we explore how spatial heterogeneity combines with mobility network structure to influence vector-borne disease dynamics.  In addition, we will derive an approximation for the basic reproduction number for a n-patch ODE system using a Laurent series expansion, and construct sensitivity equations to determine which parameters should be targeted for intervention strategies.