Mathematical Modeling of the Adaptive Immune Responses in the Early Stage of the HBV Infection

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the early stage of HBV infection and impact delay in the infection process on the adaptive immune response, which includes cytotoxic T-lymphocytes and antibodies. In this stage, the growth of the healthy hepatocyte cells is logistic while the growth of the infected ones is linear. To investigate the role of the treatment at this stage, we also consider two types of treatment: interferon-α (IFN) and nucleoside analogues (NAs). To find the best strategy to use this treatment, an optimal control approach is developed to find the possibility of having a functional cure to HBV.