Name : Maria Lecturer : Kamarza Mulia, Ph.

D
NPM : 1506743706 Lecturer : Elsa Krisanti Ph.D
Subject : KPM Date : April 26th, 2018

Rate of Zombie Infection Process

A zombie is a reanimated human corpse that feeds on living human flesh. The phenomenon
of Zombies appearance described people as being controlled by a powerful sorcerer, in the given
case, the sorcerer come from parasitic fungal infection. To figure out how fast the number of
Zombies will increase and whether or not human survival is possible, a mathematical model
developed to examine rates of spread and establish whether or not any action can be taken to slow
or prevent the spread of Zombies. The Zombie model developed by categorizing about what “state”
a human can be in. It is decided that a “human” can be in one of four states:

1. Susceptible—currently un-infected, but susceptible to infection by a zombie.

2. Undead—infected by a scratch or bite of a zombie, but not yet infectious (i.e., capable of
infecting) nor presenting full-blown zombie symptoms. This is a state of latency.
3. Zombie—Infected, infectious, with full symptoms; acute state.
4. Dead—this state can result either by the usual causes for humans, or, in the case of zombies, by
being killed by an uninfected human.

Each state human can be in and the interconnections between state illustrated as the scheme drawn
in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1. Illustration Diagram of Zombies attack phenomenon

(Source: “Zombie Attack!” by Kyla M. Flanagan)
 The work produced by Munz et al. assumes that zombies and humans are well mixed,
meaning that zombies can be found everywhere there are humans. Because humans and zombies
are not initially separated, humans are not able to run and hide in order to try and preserve
themselves. Found out a well-documented fact that zombies are deadly but slow-moving, it is quite
possible that humans would be able to outrun the zombies and produce a defensible blockade
where humans could live safely. In order to do so, it would be useful to know how long an
infestation of zombies would take to reach humans’ defenses; this would give an estimate of how
long humans would have to scavenge for supplies and weaponry in order that they may protect
ourselves from these oncoming, undead predators.

A useful question to ask would be: ‘If a Zombie were to infect a group of humans, what
will the value of the infection process rate and how could humans slow down the rate of infection?’
The answer of this question, in the developed model is the value of alpha, gives a chance for
potential survivors to split from the infected group and move to another defensible area. In order
to find the answer, some approaches about Zombies made.

First, the movements of Zombies approached to the phenomenon of diffusion. According

to Munz et al., “the ‘undead’ move in small, irregular steps.” This makes their individual
movement a reliable model of a random walk. The ‘drunkard’s’ or random walk, is a mathematical
description of movement in which no direction is preferred. The motion of each Zombie can be
modelled as individual but, since their movement is random, their positions will not be certain they
all exactly tracked. Probabilistic descriptions can be used but, due to the assumed large population
of Zombies, the computational power needed by such simulations would soon get out of hand.
Instead, a continuous model of diffusion produced as it is much easier to use. According to the
approach motion of Zombies then illustrated as the figure below:

Figure 2. Illustration of Zombies motion, approached as phenomenon of diffusion

 (Source: Mathematical modelling of zombies, T.E. Woolley et al.)

If the density of Zombies at a point x and at a time t be Z(x,t), then the density has
to satisfy the diffusion equation:
𝜕𝑍 𝜕 2𝑍
(𝑥, 𝑡) = 𝐷 2
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡
𝜕𝑍
Where rate of change of Zombies over time at a point x and the factor D is a positive constant
𝜕𝑡

that controls the speed of movement. This diffusion equation gives a mathematical description of
Zombies’ movement. By solving it, the function Z(x,t) – the density of the zombies at each position
x for all time t ≥ 0 can be produced. With initial condition of:

and boundary condition of:

the diffusion equation can be solved as the form of:

After gaining the mathematical equation of Zombies’ movement, the rate of infection
process needed to know in order to predict how many time humans have to build defense toward
Zombies’ attack and how to slow the infection process down. Referring to the Figure 1, infection
process approached as a reaction between a susceptible human and a Zombie that produce an
undead human and a Zombie which can be written as the equation below:
𝛼
𝑆+𝑍 →𝑈+𝑍

where α stands as the reaction rate. To transform this reaction into a mathematical equation, the
Law of Mass Action used. This law states that the rate of reaction is proportional to the product of
the active populations. Simply put, this means that the above reactions are more likely to occur if
the number of humans and/or zombies increased. Thus, without considering the rate of the
zombification, following equation can be produced:
 𝑑𝑈
= 𝛼𝑆𝑍
𝑑𝑡

The equation above shows that the infection rate will depend on each susceptible humans
and Zombies population proportionally. Using the diffusion approach stated above, the number of
Zombies can be calculated as the function of space and time. But, the number of Zombies will
increase as the zombification process happen and will also decrease along the process of humans
killing Zombies, in this case, as a serial process to infection process. Thus, the change of Zombies
population can be written as this following equation:

𝑑𝑍
= 𝑍(𝑥, 𝑡) + 𝑧𝑈 − 𝑘𝑆𝑍
𝑑𝑡

The population of susceptible humans can also be obtained as a function of time by taking in
account the rate of natural birth and death of humans. Assume that the initial number of humans
in earth before the outbreak happen begins at 6.7 billion, the change of humans’ population can be
written as:

𝑑𝑆
= 𝑆(𝑡) + 𝑏𝑆 − 𝑚𝑆
𝑑𝑡

With S(0) = 6.7 x 109

In conclusion, the rate or probability of infection rate will be affected by these things:

1. Zombies’ movements.
2. The rate of zombification.
3. The rate of humans killing Zombies.
4. The rate of humans’ natural birth and death.

REFERENCE
P. Munz, I. Hudea, J. Imad, R.J. Smith. 2009. When zombies attack!: Mathematical modelling of
an outbreak of zombie infection. Ottawa.
Woolley, Thomas E. et al. (2014). Mathematical modelling of Zombies. Ottawa: University of
Ottawa Press.