Epidemic spreading with time delay in complex networks

We present a modified susceptible–infected–susceptible (SIS) model on complex networks, small-world and scale-free, to study epidemic spreading with the effect of time delay which is introduced to the infected phase. Considering topologies of the networks, both uniform and degree-dependent delays are studied during the contagion process. It is found that the existence of delay will enhance both outbreaks and prevalence of infectious diseases in the networks.