Global stability of a delayed multi-group SIRS epidemic model with nonlinear incidence rates and relapse of infection (Q500152)

The authors consider an SIRS epidemic model with discrete delays. Under suitable conditions they use a Lyapunov functional approach and monotone iterative approach and show the permanence of the model. More precisely, they investigate the influence of delays and nonlinear incidence rates for the permanence and the global dynamics of the following multi-group SIRS epidemic model with discrete delays and nonlinear incidence rates: \[ \begin{aligned}{dS_k (t)}/{dt}&= b_k-\mu_k S_k (t)-S_{(t)} \sum_{j =1}^n\beta_{kj}G(I_j(t-\tau_{kj}))+\epsilon_k I_k(t)+\delta_k R_k (t),\\ {dI_k (t)}/{dt}&= S_{(t)} \sum_{j =1}^n\beta_{kj}G(I_j(t-\tau_{kj}))-(\mu_k+\epsilon_k+\gamma_k)I_k(t)+\sigma_k R_k (t),\\{dR_k (t)}/{dt}&= \gamma_k I_k(t)(\mu_k+\epsilon_k+\gamma_k)R_k \end{aligned} \] with known initial condition \((S_k (0), I_k (0), R_k (0)).\) The basic conditions on the function \(G\) are the following: (H1) \(G(I)\) is strictly monotone increasing on \([0,+\infty)\) with \(G(0)=0\). (H2) \(I/G(I)\) is monotone increasing on \([0,+\infty)\) such that \(\lim_{I\to+0}I/G(I)=1.\) Among others in subsection 2.1 the authors deal with the existence of an endemic equilibrium, and in section 3 they give results on the global asymptotic stability of the disease-free equilibrium. The global asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium by the use of the Lyapunov function method is investigated in section 4 and by the iterative monotone method in section 5. The paper closes with an application to a model of sexual transmitted deceases for \(n=2\).