City Think


Optimal control strategies for dengue transmission in Pakistan

We estimated the basic reproduction number without any interventions for the 2017 dengue outbreak in Peshawar district of Pakistan as R=2.64 the distribution of the reproduction number lies in the range (with a mean R= [1.21,5.24]). Optimal control theory will be then apply to investigate the optimal strategy for curtailing the spread of the disease using two time-dependent control variables determined from sensitivity analysis. These control variables are insecticide use and vaccination. The results will be help full to estimate the number of infections in the district regardless of the weights on the costs this is due to the reciprocal relationship between the cost of insecticide use and vaccination. A strong reciprocal relationship exists between the use of insecticide and vaccination; as the cost of insecticide increases the use of vaccination increases. The use of insecticide on the other hand slightly increases when vaccination level decreases due to increase in cost.