Mathematical modelling of Lassa-fever transmission dynamics with optimal control of selected control measures

Lassa fever continues to threaten global health, though there are ongoing efforts to reduce the incidence and burden of the disease. Here, a deterministic mathematical model is developed to study the transmission dynamics of the disease with the impacts of the proposed control strategies. The compartmental model comprises a set of coupled ordinary differential equations (ODE) representing human-to-human and rodent-to-human pathways. The basic reproduction number was derived using the Next-generation matrix approach. Furthermore, the Lassa fever epidemic scenario was formulated as an optimal control problem while Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle was adopted to obtain the associated optimality system. The resulting system was solved numerically and simulated for different epidemic scenarios. Findings from our simulations show that optimal combinations of early hospitalization, public health education, timely detection cum treatment, and pest control strategies would result in a remarkable reduction of the disease spread. Moreover, conscientious implementation of these proposed control measures could lead to eradication of the epidemic within 100 days.