  We introduce a dengue model (SEIR) where the human individuals are treated on
an individual basis (IBM) while the mosquito population, produced by an
independent model, is treated by compartments (SEI). We study the spread of
epidemics by the sole action of the mosquito. Exponential, deterministic and
experimental distributions for the (human) exposed period are considered in two
weather scenarios, one corresponding to temperate climate and the other to
tropical climate. Virus circulation, final epidemic size and duration of
outbreaks are considered showing that the results present little sensitivity to
the statistics followed by the exposed period provided the median of the
distributions are in coincidence. Only the time between an introduced
(imported) case and the appearance of the first symptomatic secondary case is
sensitive to this distribution. We finally show that the IBM model introduced
is precisely a realization of a compartmental model, and that at least in this
case, the choice between compartmental models or IBM is only a matter of
convenience.
