Dynamics and optimal control of Ebola transmission

TL;DR

This paper models Ebola transmission using a SEIR framework and explores optimal control strategies like vaccination and education to mitigate the outbreak's impact.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical model for Ebola spread and analyzes optimal control strategies for vaccination and education to reduce infections.

Findings

Optimal vaccination strategies can significantly reduce Ebola cases.

Education combined with vaccination enhances control effectiveness.

Model predictions align with observed outbreak dynamics.

Abstract

A major Ebola outbreak occurs in West Africa since March 2014, being the deadliest epidemic in history. As an infectious disease epidemiology, Ebola is the most lethal and is moving faster than in previous outbreaks. On 8 August 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Last update on 7 July 2015 by WHO reports 27 609 cases of Ebola with a total of 11 261 deaths. In this work, we present a mathematical description of the spread of Ebola virus based on the SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infective-Recovered) model and optimal strategies for Ebola control. In order to control the propagation of the virus and to predict the impact of vaccine programmes, we investigate several strategies of optimal control of the spread of Ebola: control infection by vaccination of susceptible; minimize exposed and infected; reduce Ebola infection by vaccination and education.