Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Despite advances in treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, liver transplantation remains the only hope for many patients with end-stage liver disease due to HBV. A complication with liver transplantation, however, is that the new liver is eventually reinfected in chronic HBV patients by infection in other compartments of the body. We have formulated a model to describe the dynamics of HBV after liver transplant, considering the liver and the blood of areas of infection. Analyzing the model, we observe that the system shows either a transcritical or a backward bifurcation. Explicit conditions on the model parameters are given for the backward bifurcation to be present, to be reduced, or disappear. Consequently, we investigate possible factors that are responsible for HBV/HCV infection and assess control strategies to reduce HBV/HCV reinfection and improve graft survival after liver transplantation.