Size structured epidemic models

There have been many studies on the dynamics of infectious diseases considering the age structure of the population. This study analyzes the dynamics when the population is stratified by size. This kind of models are useful in the spread of a disease in fisheries where size matters, for microorganism populations or even human diseases that are driven by weight. A simple size structured SIR model is introduced for which a threshold condition, R0, equilibria and stability are established in special cases. Hethcote's approach is used to derive, from first principles, a parallel ODE size-structure system involving n-size classes.The specific case of n = 2 is partially analyzed. Constant effort harvesting is added to this model with the purpose of exploring the role of controls and harvesting. Different harvesting policies are proposed and analyzed through simulations.