ASYMPTOTIC PROFILES OF BASIC REPRODUCTION NUMBER FOR EPIDEMIC SPREADING IN HETEROGENEOUS ENVIRONMENT

The effect of diffusion rates on the basic reproduction number of a general compartmental reaction-diffusion epidemic model in a heterogeneous environment is considered. It is shown that when the diffusion rates tend to zero, the limit of the basic reproduction number is the maximum value of the local reproduction number on the spatial domain. On the other hand, when the diffusion rates tend to infinity, the basic reproduction number tends to the spectral radius of the "average" next generation matrix. These asymptotic limits of basic reproduction number hold for a class of general spatially heterogeneous compartmental epidemic models, and they are applied to a wide variety of examples.