A cytokine-enhanced viral infection model with CTL immune response, distributed delay and saturation incidence

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a delayed cytokine-enhanced viral infection model incorporating saturation incidence and immune response. We compute the basic reproduction numbers and introduce a convex cone to discuss the impact of non-negative initial data on solutions. By defining appropriate Lyapunov functionals and employing LaSalle's invariance principle, we investigate the stability of three equilibria: the disease-free equilibrium, the immunity-inactivated equilibrium, and the immunity-activated equilibrium. We establish conditions under which these equilibria are globally asymptotically stable. Numerical analyses not only corroborate the theoretical results but also reveal that intervention in virus infection can be achieved by extending the delay period.