title: Absolute stability and Hopf bifurcation in a Plasmodium falciparum malaria model incorporating discrete immune response delay.
abstract: We consider the absolute stability of the disease-free equilibrium of an intra-host Plasmodium falciparum malarial model allowing for antigenic variation within a single species. Antigenic variation can be viewed as an adaptation of the parasite to evade host defence [2]. The model was recently developed in [3-6]. The host's immune response is compartmentalised into reactions to major and minor epitopes. The immune response mounted by the human host is delayed, where, for simplicity, the delay is assumed to be discrete. We investigate the resulting characteristic equation, with a view to establishing absolute stability criteria and computing the Hopf bifurcation of the disease-free equilibrium.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Corner Brook, NL, Canada A2H 6P9. incube@grenfell.mun.ca
authors.forename: Israel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ncube
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000940:Antigenic Variation; D000939:Epitopes; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D018448:Models, Immunological; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000939:Epitopes