Analysis of an HTLV/HIV dual infection model with diffusion

In the literature, several HTLV-I and HIV single infections models with spatial dependence have been developed and analyzed. However, modeling HTLV/HIV dual infection with diffusion has not been studied. In this work we derive and investigate a PDE model that describes the dynamics of HTLV/HIV dual infection taking into account the mobility of viruses and cells. The model includes the effect of Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) immunity. Although HTLV-I and HIV primarily target the same host, CD4⁺T cells, via infected-to-cell (ITC) contact, however the HIV can also be transmitted through free-to-cell (FTC) contact. Moreover, HTLV-I has a vertical transmission through mitosis of active HTLV-infected cells. The well-posedness of solutions, including the existence of global solutions and the boundedness, is justified. We derive eight threshold parameters which govern the existence and stability of the eight steady states of the model. We study the global stability of all steady states based on the construction of suitable Lyapunov functions and usage of Lyapunov-LaSalle asymptotic stability theorem. Lastly, numerical simulations are carried out in order to verify the validity of our theoretical results.