Mathematical Analysis of Nipah Virus Infections Using Optimal Control Theory

Abstract

The optimal use of intervention strategies to mitigate the spread of Nipah Virus (NiV) using optimal control technique is studied in this paper. First of all we formulate a dynamic model of NiV infections with variable size population and two control strategies where creating awareness and treatment are considered as controls. We intend to find the optimal combination of these two control strategies that will minimize the cost of the two control measures and as a result the number of infectious individuals will decrease. We establish the existence for the optimal controls and Pontryagin’s maximum principle is used to characterize the optimal controls. The numerical simulation suggests that optimal control technique is much more effective to minimize the infected individuals and the corresponding cost of the two controls. It is also monitored that in the case of high contact rate, controls have to work for longer period of time to get the desired result. Numerical simulation reveals that the spread of Nipah virus can be controlled effectively if we apply control strategy at early stage.