| Contents |
| Dengue fever is an infectious disease cause by one of four serotypes indentify by DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4, which are antigenically related. The virus is transmitted to humans by a bite of the female mosquito Aedes Aegypti (main vector of the disease). In the tropical island of Puerto Rico dengue is an endemic infectious disease thus, the aim of this work is to study a mathematical epidemiological model of non-linear ordinary differential equations with seasonality to estimate the transmission rate and degree of seasonality in the island. Monthly incidence data of confirmed dengue cases are used for the period of years between 2010 and 2012. The parameter estimation is performed using inverse problems theory for differential equations and the available data. Specifically, we use the minimum square method and a statistical model to measure the error in the estimation via residual plots. Finally, the type of variance of the errors (constant or non-constant) is analyzed and the results are subject to interpretation. |
|