MAÍRA AGUIAR

Basque Center for Applied Mathematics, BCAM, Bilbao, Spain
Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita degli Studi di Trento, Italy

ON THE ORIGIN OF COMPLEX DYNAMICS IN MULTI-STRAIN DENGUE MODELS

Dengue fever epidemiological dynamics shows large fluctuations in disease incidence, and several mathematical models describing the transmission of dengue viruses have been proposed to explain the irregular behavior of dengue epidemics. Multi-strain dengue models are often modeled with SIR-type models where the SIR classes are labeled for the hosts that have seen the individual strains. The extended models show complex dynamics and qualitatively a very good result when comparing empirical data and model simulations.
However, modeling insights for epidemiological scenarios characterized by chaotic dynamics, such as for dengue fever epidemiology, have been largely unexplored. The problem is mathematically difficult and to make the urgently needed progress in our understanding of such dynamics, concepts from various fields of mathematics as well the availability of good data for model evaluation are needed.
In this talk, I will present a set of models motivated by dengue fever epidemiology and compare different dynamical behaviors originated when increasing complexity into the model framework.

Short Bio

Dr. Maíra Aguiar is a mathematical epidemiologist working on infectious disease dynamics. With a multidisciplinary research profile, is trained in dynamical systems theory, stochastic processes, nonlinear dynamics, bifurcation analysis and biostatistics and her scientific interests addresses significant mathematical and fundamental questions in biology and medicine, with special focus on public health epidemiology modeling.

Dr. Aguiar is a former Marie Curie Fellow at Trento University, Italy and she is presently the founder and the leader of the MTB group (Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Group) at BCAM (the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics in the Basque Country), Spain. Dr. Aguiar is member of the Board of Directors of the European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB), serving as Vice-President from 2018-2020. As a member of the Basque Modeling Task Force, Dr. Aguiar is currently assisting the Basque Health Managers and the Basque Government during the COVID-19 responses.