Excitability in the host-pathogen interactions of HIV infection and emergence of viral load blips

► We modeled the dynamic HIV infection to interpret the emergence of viral blips. ► HIV host-pathogen interactions are shown to be excitable under adequate conditions. ► In these conditions, viral-pool perturbations are shown to efficiently trigger viral blips. ► Perturbations of CD4 and CD8 T-cell density are shown to trigger blips but to a lesser extent. ► Blips are of low clinical significance as any viraemia perturbation could trigger them.