SPATIAL SPREAD OF EPIDEMIC DISEASES IN GEOGRAPHICAL SETTINGS: SEASONAL INFLUENZA EPIDEMICS IN PUERTO RICO

A deterministic model is developed for the spatial spread of an epidemic disease in a geographical setting. The model is focused on outbreaks that arise from a small number of infected individuals in sub-regions of the geographical setting. The goal is to understand how spatial heterogeneity influences the transmission dynamics of susceptible and infected populations. The model consists of a system of partial differential equations with a diffusion term describing the spatial spread of an underlying microbial infectious agent. The model is applied to simulate the spatial spread of the 2016-2017 seasonal influenza epidemic in Puerto Rico. In this simulation, the reported case data from the Puerto Rican Department of Health are used to implement a numerical finite element scheme for the model. The model simulation explains the geographical evolution of this epidemic in Puerto Rico, consistent with the reported case data.