Dynamics of an age-structured HIV model with general nonlinear infection rate

Abstract

In this paper, the asymptotical behavior of an age-structured HIV infection model with general nonlinear infection function and logistic proliferation term is studied. Based on the existence of the equilibria and theory of operator semigroups, linearized stability/instability of the disease-free and endemic equilibria are investigated through the distribution of eigenvalues of the linear operator. Then persistence of the solution semi-flow of the considered system is studied by showing the existence of a global attractor and the obtained result shows that the solution semi-flow is persistent as long as the basic reproduction number $R_0>1$. Moreover, Hopf bifurcations problem around the endemic equilibrium is also considered for the situation with a specific infection function. Since the system has two different delays, four cases are discussed to investigate the influence of the time delays on the dynamics of system around the endemic equilibrium including stability and Hopf bifurcations. At last, some numerical examples with concrete parameters are provided to illustrate the obtained results.