Global stability analysis of a general model of Zika virus (Q2311389)

This paper is concerned with the global stability analysis of two distinct ODE models of Zika virus transmission, with or without horizontal (host to host) transmission of the disease. First, the authors revisit a 10-dimensional model which only accounts for vector to host and vertical (mother to child) transmission, originally introduced in [\textit{F. B. Agusto} et al., Infect. Disease Model., 2 244--267 (2017)]. They obtain an explicit expression for the basic reproduction number \(\mathcal{R}_0\) of the disease via the next generation method and then prove the global stability of the disease-free equilibrium on condition that \(\mathcal{R}_0\leq1\) via an adaptation of the matrix theoretic approach introduced in [\textit{Z. Shuai} and \textit{P. van den Driessche}, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 73, No. 4, 1513--1532 (2013, Zbl 1308.34072)]. Note that this approach cannot be used directly since a certain positivity condition fails to hold. Next, the authors consider a 15-dimensional model introduced \textit{ad hoc} which, apart from vector-to-host and vertical transmission, accounts for horizontal transmission as well. Also, a more general recruitment rate is used for the submodel which deals with vector dynamics. Apart from discussing the stability of the disease-free equilibrium via an approach which is similar to the one employed for the previous model, the authors also establish the existence of an endemic equilibrium (which does not hold for most previous models of Zika dynamics) and prove its global stability whenever \(\mathcal{R}_0>1\) via the use of a composite Lyapunov functional whose coefficients are determined using a graph theoretic approach.