Fig 5. Sensitivity of the multiple-reactivation model to misspecification.

(A) A misspecified initial viral load v₀ can lead to a biased estimate of the recrudescence rate λ. Rebound data sets (n = 200) were simulated by sampling from the viral load process (Eq 1) using different values of the recrudescence rate λ (horizontal dashed lines), and different assumed values of v₀ (horizontal axis). The ground truth value of v₀ equals 0.1 copies mL⁻¹ (vertical dashed lines). Shown are the 95% CrIs of the estimate $\widehat{\mathrm{\lambda }}$ of λ (black bars) and the posterior medians (red). (B) Intra-host variation in the exponential growth rate of the VL can lead to a biased estimate of the recrudescence rate λ. Data sets of rebound time series were now simulated from a viral load process with within-host variability of the growth rate G_i (Eq S12 in S1 Text, S5 Fig), using different values of the recrudescence rate and the standard deviation of the viral growth rate (σ_G, horizontal axis), ranging from 0% to 20% of the most likely growth rate g = 0.5.