Demographic and behavioural change during epidemics

The speed and range of epidemic spreading is strongly influenced by the topology and dynamics of the relevant transmission network. This is, however, not a uni-directional relationship. The mutual interaction between epidemic spreading and the evolution of the transmission network is described within a new mathematical framework by a closed set of partial differential equations. This allows to investigate the influence of demographic change on epidemic events. These may arise in response to the epidemic itself or due to external factors. The use of the method is demonstrated in case studies dealing with epidemics on transmission networks with Poisson and scale free degree distributions. The impact of demographic and behavioural change on epidemics and their control is pointed out and analysed in detail. The presented technique is computationally efficient and can help to extend the scope of current approaches in computational modeling of disease spreading.