Global dynamics of SIS models with transport-related infection

To understand the effect of transport-related infection on disease spread, an epidemic model for several regions which are connected by transportation of individuals has been proposed by Cui, Takeuchi and Saito [J. Cui, Y. Takeuchi, Y. Saito, Spreading disease with transport-related infection, J. Theoret. Biol. 239 (2006) 376–390]. Transportation among regions is one of the main factors which affects the outbreak of diseases. The purpose of this paper is the further study of the local asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium and the global dynamics of the system. Sufficient conditions are established for global asymptotic stability of the endemic equilibrium. Permanence is also discussed. It is shown that the disease is endemic in the sense of permanence if and only if the endemic equilibrium exists. This implies that transport-related infection on disease can make the disease endemic even if all the isolated regions are disease free.