Fig 1.
Schematic illustration of key infection-related quantities that define the course of acute viral infections.
Black line: viral load curve over time. Filled area indicates viral load area under the curve (AUC). X-axis: time in days post infection. Y-axis: log10 viral load (TCID50/ml).
Table 1.
Infection-related quantities derived from a simple viral dynamics model that can improve the assessment of therapy against acute viral diseases[10].
Fig 2.
Model fit to data for nine patients.
Black dots: viral load data points. Red line: model fit based on median estimates. Light brown area: sample from posterior distributions of viral dynamics. Patients 2 and 3 have a missing data point at day 1. Accordingly, there is great uncertainty about the time of the viral load peak, as illustrated by the sample from the posterior distribution.
Table 2.
Values of infection-related quantities of nine patients based on median estimates of parameters and 95% credible intervals.
Table 3.
Pairwise correlations between infection-related quantities, between infection-related quantities and temperature area under the curve, and between infection-related quantities and symptom score area under the curve.
Correlations that are significant using the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons are indicated by an asterisk. Correlations that are significant using the less stringent Benjamini-Hochberg correction are indicated by a diamond. Values below the diagonal show Pearson’s correlation coefficient, values above the diagonal show uncorrected p-values for each correlation. AUCS: total symptom score area under the curve. AUCT: temperature area under the curve. R0: basic reproductive number. AUCV: viral load area under the curve. FDC: fraction of dead cells at end of infection. tpeak: time to peak viral load. Vpeak: peak viral load. tg: generation time. IGR: initial viral growth rate. LDR: late viral decay rate. D: duration of infection.
Fig 3.
Viral load curves, temperature curves and total symptom score curves of nine patients.
Fig 4.
Schematic illustration of changes expected in key infection-related quantities in treated versus untreated individuals (treated before time of peak viral load on day 1).
Treatments acting on the infection rate or viral production rate have a strong impact on infection, if given before the time of peak viral load (a, b). They reduce peak viral load, duration of infection and viral load area under the curve (AUC). Treatments acting on virus clearance have a weaker effect on the course of infection, if given before the time of peak viral load (c). Black line: viral load curve in untreated infection. Red line: viral load curve in treated infection. Fill indicates viral load area under the curve in treated infection.
Fig 5.
Schematic illustration of changes expected in key infection-related quantities in treated versus untreated individuals (treated after time of peak viral load–days 2, 3).
After the peak treatments acting on the infection rate or virus production rate have a small to negligible effect on infection-related quantities (a, b, d, e). After the peak treatments acting on the virus clearance rate have a bigger impact on infection-related quantities (c, f). Black line: viral load curve in untreated infection. Red line: viral load curve in treated infection. Fill indicates viral load area under the curve in treated infection.