Interactions between hosts affect virus competition mechanism within an infectious strain

Abstract

Competition of different viruses in a common strain usually results in one variant dominating over all others and eventually suppressing them, following the Principle of Competitive Exclusion. Viruses host in larger animals and they spread to others via the interactions between the hosts. In the present communication, we focus on the role played by the interacting hosts in determining the evolutionary path of a strain. Simple mathematical models are considered to model the evolution of the strain as well as to model the spread of the disease. We observe that the structure of the interactions between hosts influences the evolutionary mechanism as well as the spread of the disease