Travelling waves for an epidemic model with non-smooth treatment rates

Abstract

We consider a susceptible–infected–removed (SIR) epidemic model with two types of nonlinear treatment rates: (i) piecewise linear treatment rate with saturation effect, (ii) piecewise constant treatment rate with a jump (Heaviside function). For case (i), we compute travelling front solutions whose profiles are heteroclinic orbits which connect either the disease-free state to an infective state or two endemic states with each other. For case (ii), it is shown that the profile has the following properties: the number of susceptibles is monotonically increasing and the number of infectives approaches zero at infinity, while their product converges to a constant. Numerical simulations are performed for all these cases. Abnormal behaviour like travelling waves with non-monotonic profile or oscillations is observed.