Abstract
. Incomplete treatment of patients with infectious tuberculosis (TB) may not only lead to relapse but also to the development of antibiotic resistant TB – one of the most serious health problems facing society today. In this article, we formulate one-strain and two-strain TB models to determine possible mechanisms that may allow for the survival and spread of naturally resistant strains of TB as well as antibiotic-generated resistant strains of TB. Analysis of our models shows that non-antibiotic co-existence is possible but rare for naturally resistant strains while co-existence is almost the rule for strains that result from the lack of compliance with antibiotic treatment by TB infected individuals.
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Received 22 May 1995; received in revised form 28 February 1996
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Castillo-Chavez, C., Feng, Z. To treat or not to treat: the case of tuberculosis. J Math Biol 35, 629–656 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002850050069
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002850050069