Abstract
ABSTRACTGlobal eradication of Guinea worm disease (GWD) is in the final stage but a mysterious epidemic of the parasite in dog population makes the elimination programme challenging. There is neither a vaccine nor an effective treatment against the disease and therefore intervention strategies rely on the current epidemiological understandings to control the spread of the disease. A novel mathematical model can predict the future outbreaks and it can quantify the dissemination rates of control interventions. Due to the lack of such novel models, a realistic mathematical model of GWD dynamics with human population, dog population, copepod population and the worm larvae is proposed and analyzed. Considering case data from Chad, we calibrate the model and perform global sensitivity analysis of the basic reproduction number with respect to the control parameters and copepod consumption rates. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of three control interventions: awareness of humans, isolation of infected dogs and copepod clearance from contaminated water sources. We also address the impact of combination interventions which leads to the conclusion that the combination of isolating the infected dogs and treating the contaminated ponds is a plausible way for eliminating the burden of GWD from Chad.
Highlights
Guinea worm disease (GWD), known as Dracunculiasis, is one of humanity ancient scourges [24]
Since neither a vaccine nor an effective treatment is available for GWD, control strategies focus on the provision of clean water, isolation of infected dogs and changing people’s behaviour
Another goal of this paper is to study the impacts of various control interventions, namely; awareness campaigns, isolation of infected dogs and killing copepods in the affected areas
Summary
Of great concern as outbreaks tend to occur at times of agricultural importance [18]. Smith et al [26] developed a mathematical model of GWD to evaluate the effectiveness of chlorination. The aforementioned studies have produced useful insights on the transmission and control of GWD, none of these studies incorporated dog infection along with copepods population explicitly. A goal of this study is to design and analyse a populationlevel model for GWD dynamics that incorporate human population, dog population,. Another goal of this paper is to study the impacts of various control interventions, namely; awareness campaigns, isolation of infected dogs and killing copepods in the affected areas.
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