Temporal Pattern of the Emergence of a Mutant Virus Escaping Cross-Immunity and Stochastic Extinction Within a Host

A high mutation rate of the RNA virus results in the emergence of novel mutants that may escape the immunity activated by the original (wild-type) strain. However, many of them go extinct because of the stochasticity due to the small initial number of infected cells. In a previous paper, we studied the probability of escaping stochastic extinction when the novel mutant has a faster rate of infection and when it is resistant to a drug that suppresses the wild-type virus. In this study, we examine the effect of escaping the immune reaction of the host. Based on a continuous-time branching process with time-dependent rates, we conclude the chance for a mutant strain to be established [Formula: see text] decreases with time [Formula: see text] since the wild-type infection when the mutant is produced. The number of novel mutants that can escape extinction risk has a peak soon after the wild-type infection. The number of novel escape mutations produced per patient in the early phase of host infection is small both for very strong and very weak immune responses, and it attains its maximum value when immune activity is of an intermediate strength.