Stochastic epidemics: major outbreaks and the duration of the endemic period.

A study is made of a two-dimensional stochastic system that models the spread of an infectious disease in a population. An asymptotic expression is derived for the probability that a major outbreak of the disease will occur in case the number of infectives is small. For the case that a major outbreak has occurred, an asymptotic approximation is derived for the expected time that the disease is in the population. The analytical expressions are obtained by asymptotically solving Dirichlet problems based on the Fokker-Planck equation for the stochastic system. Results of numerical calculations for the analytical expressions are compared with simulation results.