  We study the effect of migration between coupled populations, or patches, on
the stability properties of multistrain disease dynamics. The epidemic model
used in this work displays a Hopf bifurcation to oscillations in a single well
mixed population. It is shown numerically that migration between two
non-identical patches stabilizes the endemic steady state, delaying the onset
of large amplitude outbreaks and reducing the total number of infections. This
result is motivated by analyzing generic Hopf bifurcations with different
frequencies and with diffusive coupling between them. Stabilization of the
steady state is again seen, indicating that our observation in the full
multistrain model is based on qualitative characteristics of the dynamics
rather than on details of the disease model.
