Dynamics of a Reaction Diusion Brucellosis Model

Abstract

To understand the effects of animal movement on transmission and control of brucellosis infection, a reaction diffusion partial differential equation (PDE) brucellosis model that incorporates wild and domesticated animals under homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions is proposed and analysed. We computed the reproductive number for the brucellosis model in the absence of spatial movement and we established that, the associated model has a globally asymptotically stable disease-free equilibrium whenever the reproductive number is less or equal to unity. However, if the reproductive number is greater than unity an endemic equilibrium point which is globally asymptotically stable exists. We performed sensitivity analysis on the key parameters that drive the disease dynamics in order to determine their relative importance to disease transmission and prevalence. For the model with spatial movement the disease threshold is studied by using the basic reproductive number. Additionally we investigate the existence of a Turing stability and travelling waves. Our results shows that incorporating diffusive spatial spread does not produce a Turing instability when the reproductive number R0ODE  associated with the ODE model is less than unity. Finally the results suggest that minimizing interaction between buffalo and cattle population can be essential to manage brucellosis spillover between domesticated and wildlife animals. Numerical simulations are carried out to support analytical findings.