The complete classification for global dynamics of a model for the persistence of HTLV-I infection

Li and Lim (2011) [8] proposed a three-dimensional system of ordinary differential equations modeling the role of Tax expression in the persistence of Human T-lymphotropic virus Type I and presented a mathematical analysis and its immunovirological explanation. The previous paper shows that three-dimensional system is a cooperative system if a sharp condition is satisfied. By means of the theory of cooperative dynamical systems, they studied the global dynamics. If the sharp condition is not satisfied, they leave it an open problem. The present paper is to provide a complete classification of global dynamics for this ODE model. In particular, our global analysis establishes that the dynamics of the HTLV-I infection are completely determined by a basic reproductive number, which completely solves the open problem above.