Papers by Dephney Mathebula
2023 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Computing and Data Communication Systems (icABCD)
Annals of Data Science
Epidemiology, the aspect of research focusing on disease modelling is date intensive. Research ep... more Epidemiology, the aspect of research focusing on disease modelling is date intensive. Research epidemiologists in different research groups played a key role in developing different data driven model for COVID-19 and monkeypox. The requirement of accessing highly accurate data useful for disease modelling is beneficial but not without having challenges. Currently, the task of data acquisition is executed by select individuals in different research groups. This approach experiences the drawbacks associated with getting permission to access the desired data and inflexibility to change data acquisition goals due to dynamic epidemiological research objectives. The presented research addresses these challenges and proposes the design and use of dynamic intelligent crawlers for acquiring epidemiological data related to a given goal. In addition, the research aims to quantify how the use of computing entities enhances the process of data acquisition in epidemiological related studies. This...
arXiv (Cornell University), Sep 18, 2022
The rapid development of vaccines to combat the spread of COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV... more The rapid development of vaccines to combat the spread of COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a great scientific achievement. Before the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, most studies capitalized on the available data that did not include pharmaceutical measures. Such studies focused on the impact of non-pharmaceutical measures (e.g social distancing, sanitation, wearing of face masks, and lockdown) to study the spread of COVID-19. In this study, we used the SIDARTHE-V model which is an extension of the SIDARTHE model wherein we include vaccination roll outs. We studied the impact of vaccination on the severity (deadly nature
Journal of Immunological Techniques & Infectious Diseases, 2021
2022 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Computing and Data Communication Systems (icABCD)
Modelling the transmission dynamics of Multi-strains Influenza with Vaccination and Antiviral Tre... more Modelling the transmission dynamics of Multi-strains Influenza with Vaccination and Antiviral Treatment
Mathematical Biosciences, 2014
In this study we develop a mathematical modelling framework for linking the within-host and betwe... more In this study we develop a mathematical modelling framework for linking the within-host and between-host dynamics of infections with free-living pathogens in the environment. The resulting linked models are sometimes called immuno-epidemiological models. However, there is still no generalised framework for linking the within-host and between-host dynamics of infectious diseases. Furthermore, for infections with free-living pathogens in the environment, there is an additional stumbling block in that there is a gap in knowledge on how environmental factors (through water, air, soil, food, fomites, etc.) alter many aspects of such infections including susceptibility to infective dose, persistence of infection, pathogen shedding and severity of the disease. In this work, we link the two subsystems (within-host and between-host models) by identifying the within-host and between-host variables and parameters associated with the environmental dynamics of the pathogen and then design a feedback of the variables and parameters across the within-host and between-host models using human schistosomiasis as a case study. We study the mathematical properties of the linked model and show that the model is epidemiologically well-posed. Using results from the analysis of the endemic equilibrium expression, the disease reproductive number R0, and numerical simulations of the full model, we adequately account for the reciprocal influence of the linked within-host and between-host models. In particular, we illustrate that for human schistosomiasis, the outcome of infection at the individual level determines if, when and how much the individual host will further transmit the infectious agent into the environment, eventually affecting the spread of the infection in the host population. We expect the conceptual modelling framework developed here to be applicable to many infectious disease with free-living pathogens in the environment beyond the specific disease system of human schistosomiasis considered here.
Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences
Journal of Theoretical Biology
Modelling the transmission dynamics of Multi-strains Influenza with Vaccination and Antiviral Tre... more Modelling the transmission dynamics of Multi-strains Influenza with Vaccination and Antiviral Treatment
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Papers by Dephney Mathebula