An SIR model with viral load-dependent transmission

Abstract: The viral load is known to be a chief predictor of the risk of transmission of infectious diseases. In this work, we investigate the role of the individuals' viral load in the disease transmission by proposing a new susceptible-infectious-recovered epidemic model for the densities and mean viral loads of each compartment. To this aim, we formally derive the compartmental model from an appropriate microscopic one. Firstly, we consider a multi-agent system in which individuals are identified by the epidemiological compartment to which they belong and by their viral load. Microscopic rules describe both the switch of compartment and the evolution of the viral load. In particular, in the binary interactions between susceptible and infectious individuals, the probability for the susceptible individual to get infected depends on the viral load of the infectious individual. Then, we implement the prescribed microscopic dynamics in appropriate kinetic equations, from which the macroscopic equations for the densities and viral load momentum of the compartments are eventually derived. In the macroscopic model, the rate of disease transmission turns out to be a function of the mean viral load of the infectious population. We analytically and numerically investigate the case that the transmission rate linearly depends on the viral load, which is compared to the classical case of constant transmission rate. A qualitative analysis is performed based on stability and bifurcation theory. Finally, numerical investigations concerning the model reproduction number and the epidemic dynamics are presented.