Abstract
After fifty years of documented history of Lassa fever in Nigeria, the country is still recording the highest record of outbreaks worldwide with Ebonyi state been the most affected state in the whole of Eastern Nigeria. This has activated interventional measures coming from both the government and scholars. The government through the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other sister agencies has activated an emergency response by establishing management centres which operates in association with specialist teaching hospitals in the endemic states, the scholars on the other hand are approaching the menace from two broad but complimentary aspects of sciences namely; the medical sciences and the natural sciences. The medical researchers focus more on developing reliable laboratory diagnosis, quicker methods of identifying the LASV and drug/vaccine formulation, the natural scientist (Bio-mathematicians) on the other hand focuses on modeling the dynamic transmission and controls among the various hosts of the LASV. This paper presents a mathematical model that tracks the transmission dynamics of Lassa fever in two different but complimentary host; human host and rat host. The model incorporates a death infectious human compartment capable of infecting susceptible population. The model analysis, basic reproduction number, existence of endemic equilibrium and bifurcation analysis was analyzed. It was established that the disease-free equilibrium point is stable when the reproduction number, R<sub>0</sub><1 and the disease dies out. Numerical simulation was carried out with parametized data for Ebonyi State, Eastern Nigeria. The numerical simulation reveals that sensitization of susceptible population, quarantined of exposed humans and isolation of infectious humans, the practice of best international safety measures among health care workers, establishment of more Lassa fever diagnostic centres and precautionary burial practices remains the best control measures in the dynamic transmission of Lassa fever.
Highlights
Lassa fever (LF) is a zoonotic viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) cause by Lassa virus (LASV)
The government through the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other sister agencies has activated an emergency response by establishing management centres which operates in association with specialist teaching hospitals in the endemic states
In the work of [26], they developed a mathematical model for the transmission dynamics of the Lassa fever virus infection by splitting the infectious human population into symptomatic and asymptomatic infectious and assumed that the animal reservoirs do not recover once infected
Summary
Lassa fever (LF) is a zoonotic viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) cause by Lassa virus (LASV). In the work of [26], they developed a mathematical model for the transmission dynamics of the Lassa fever virus infection by splitting the infectious human population into symptomatic and asymptomatic infectious and assumed that the animal reservoirs do not recover once infected Their model revealed that, the disease becomes endemic in the rodents population and do not die out of the human population over time without controlling the growth of the rodents population, by preventing animal-human transmissions and improvement on the human recovery rates. Based on the literatures that the authors were able to review, no mathematical model for Lassa fever has been developed which incorporated infectious death humans as a compartment and or parametized for Ebonyi state, being the most affected state in South-east geopolitical zone of Nigeria.
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