Viral dynamics is a field of
applied mathematics concerned with describing the progression of viral infections within a host organism.
It employs a family of
mathematical model
A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, ...
s that describe changes over time in the populations of cells targeted by the virus and the
viral load. These equations may also track competition between different viral strains and the influence of immune responses. The original viral dynamics models were inspired by compartmental
epidemic models (e.g. the SI model), with which they continue to share many common mathematical features, such as the concept of the
basic reproductive ratio (''R''
0). The major distinction between these fields is in the scale at which the models operate: while epidemiological models track the spread of infection between individuals within a population (i.e. "between host"), viral dynamics models track the spread of infection between cells within an individual (i.e. "within host"). Analyses employing viral dynamic models have been used extensively to study
HIV,
, and
hepatitis C virus,
among other infections
References
{{Reflist
External links
Viral Dynamics Mathematical Modeling Training Center for AIDS Research, University of Washington
Evolutionary dynamics
Evolutionary biology
Virology
Immunology
Applied mathematics
Mathematical modeling