Abstract
BACKGROUND: In this work, we develop a theoretical model that explains the survival data in West Nile Virus infection. RESULTS: We build a model based on three cell populations in an infected host; the collateral damage cells, the infected dividing cell, and the infected non-dividing cells. T cell-mediated lysis of each of these populations is dependent on the level of MHC-1 upregulation, which is different in the two infected cell populations, interferon-gamma and free virus levels. CONCLUSIONS: The model allows us to plot a measure of host health versus time for a range of initial viral doses and from that infer the dependence of minimal health versus viral dose. This inferred functional relationship between the minimal host health and viral dose is very similar to the data that has been collected for WNV survival curves under experimental conditions.