The dynamics of growing islets and transmission of schistosomiasis japonica in the Yangtze River.

We formulate and analyze a system of ordinary differential equations for the transmission of schistosomiasis japonica on the islets in the Yangtze River, China. The impact of growing islets on the spread of schistosomiasis is investigated by the bifurcation analysis. Using the projection technique developed by Hassard, Kazarinoff and Wan, the normal form of the cusp bifurcation of codimension 2 is derived to overcome the technical difficulties in studying the existence, stability, and bifurcation of the multiple endemic equilibria in high-dimensional phase space. We show that the model can also undergo transcritical bifurcations, saddle-node bifurcations, a pitchfork bifurcation, and Hopf bifurcations. The bifurcation diagrams and epidemiological interpretations are given. We conclude that when the islet reaches a critical size, the transmission cycle of the schistosomiasis japonica between wild rats Rattus norvegicus and snails Oncomelania hupensis could be established, which serves as a possible source of schistosomiasis transmission along the Yangtze River.