Application of Optimal Control to the Epidemiology of Dengue Fever Transmission

Abstract

In this paper, we build an epidemiological model to investigate the dynamics of spread of dengue fever in human population. We apply optimal control theory to a simple SEIRS disease model of dengue fever transmission dynamics. Controls representing education and drug therapy treatment are incorporated to reduce the latently infected and actively infected individual populations, via application of the Pontryagins Minimum Principle of optimal control theory. Our overall aim is to minimize the spread of the disease in the population, and at the same time control the efforts required for education and treatment roll-out. Based on these,  we carry out  optimization using an   SEIRS model, and in the process demonstrate how optimal strategies can be implemented towards minimizing the damage caused by the dengue fever disease.

Keywords: epidemiological model, SEIRS, dengue fever, optimal control, Pontryagins Minimum Principle, fourth-order Runge-Kutta