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To treat or not to treat: The case of tuberculosis. (English) Zbl 0895.92024

Summary: Incomplete treatment of patients with infectious tuberculosis (TB) may not only lead to relapse but also to the development of antibiotic resistant TB – one of the most serious health problems facing society today. We formulate one-strain and two-strain TB models to determine possible mechanisms that may allow for the survival and spread of naturally resistant strains of TB as well as antibiotic-generated resistant strains of TB. Analysis of our models shows that non-antibiotic co-existence is possible but rare for naturally resistant strains while co-existence is almost the rule for strains that result from the lack of compliance with antibiotic treatment by TB infected individuals.

MSC:

92C60 Medical epidemiology
37-XX Dynamical systems and ergodic theory
92D30 Epidemiology
34D99 Stability theory for ordinary differential equations
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