Mathematical model for bird flu disease transmission

Abstract

Bird flu (Avian influenza) is a contagious disease of animals caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less commonly, pigs. These viruses are highly species-specific, but have, on rare occasions, crossed the species barrier to infect humans. The world at large never considered it a serious threat to mankind until the outbreak in Asia, Europe, USA and now in Africa. The aim of this paper is to use mathematical modelling to examine the population dynamics with respect to the disease and its transmission. The model population comprises birds and humans. The appropriate systems of ordinary differential equations formulated were solved numerically and the results were analysed. The result shows that the spread of the virus will continue as long as we have infected birds and there is tendency of human infection sooner or later.

Journal of the Nigerian Association of Mathematical Physics Vol. 10 2006: pp. 465-470