Robust uniform persistence and competitive exclusion in a nonautonomous multi-strain SIR epidemic model with disease-induced mortality

A nonautonomous version of the SIR epidemic model in Ackleh and Allen (2003) is considered, for competition of $$n$$ infection strains in a host population. The model assumes total cross immunity, mass action incidence, density-dependent host mortality and disease-induced mortality. Sufficient conditions for the robust uniform persistence of the total population, as well as of the susceptible and infected subpopulations, are given. The first two forms of persistence depend entirely on the rate at which the population grows from the extinction state, respectively the rate at which the disease is vertically transmitted to offspring. We also discuss the competitive exclusion among the $$n$$ infection strains, namely when a single infection strain survives and all the others go extinct. Numerical simulations are also presented, to account for the situations not covered by the analytical results. These simulations suggest that the nonautonomous nature of the model combined with the disease induced mortality allow for many strains to coexist. The theoretical approach developed here is general enough to apply to other nonautonomous epidemic models.