Abstract
Stochastic effects may cause “fade-out” of an infectious disease in a population immediately after an epidemic outbreak. We evaluate the epidemic fade-out probability by a WKB method and find that the most probable path to extinction of the disease comes from an instantonlike orbit in the phase space of an underlying Hamiltonian flow.
- Received 25 June 2009
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.80.041130
©2009 American Physical Society
