Abstract
Vector-borne diseases affects approximately 1 billion people and accounts for 17% of all infectious diseases. With travel becoming more frequent across the world, it is important to understand how spatial dynamics impact the spread of the disease. Human movement plays a key part on how a disease can be distributed as it enables a pathogen to invade a new environment, and helps the persistence of a disease in locations that would otherwise be isolated. In this talk, we explore how spatial heterogeneity combines with mobility network structure to influence vector-borne disease dynamics. In addition, we will derive an approximation for the basic reproduction number for a n-patch ODE system using a Laurent series expansion, and construct sensitivity equations to determine which parameters should be targeted for intervention strategies.