Disease outbreak as stochastic resonance: interplay between host-seeking behavior and heterogeneous human/vector interactions results in system amplification*

We perform phase space analysis on a mathematical model of mosquito-borne disease that incorporates the full mosquito life cycle. We also include the cessation of host-seeking after obtaining a blood meal, and heterogeneous interactions between the human and mosquito populations. We find that under these conditions, stochastic resonance results in the emergence of a dynamic phase of episodic outbreak, where the proportion of the human and mosquito populations susceptible to disease exposure varies wildly from year to year. The results of this work suggest that interventions to screen vector and human populations from disease leads to intermittent exposure to infection, which may lead to these populations becoming more sensitive to outbreaks.