STOCHASTIC MODELING OF THE DYNAMICS OF CD4(-CELL INFECTION BY HIV ANDSOME MONTE-CARLO STUDIES() T)

In this paper, we develop a stochastic model for the interaction betwe en CD4(+) T cells and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) virus by taking into account the basic biological mechanism as described in [1- 4]. We studied this stochastic model through extensive Monte Carlo sim ulations. Our results show that, in some cases, there is a positive pr obability that the virus will be eliminated by the process. We have al so shown that, at the earlier stage of the infection, the probability distributions of the CD4(+) T cells and free HIV are skewed; however, these distributions will eventually converge to the Gaussian distribut ions after several years. A real-data example is given to illustrate t he application of our model. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.