Qualitative Analysis of a Generalized Virus Dynamics Model with Both Modes of Transmission and Distributed Delays

Abstract

We propose a generalized virus dynamics model with distributed delays and both modes of transmission, one by virus-to-cell infection and the other by cell-to-cell transfer. In the proposed model, the distributed delays describe (i) the time needed for infected cells to produce new virions and (ii) the time necessary for the newly produced virions to become mature and infectious. In addition, the infection transmission process is modeled by general incidence functions for both modes. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis of the model is rigorously established and many known viral infection models with discrete and distributed delays are extended and improved.