Transmission dynamics of epidemic spread and outbreak of Ebola in West Africa: fuzzy modeling and simulation

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt is made to understand the transmission dynamics of Ebola virus disease (EVD) incorporating fuzziness in all biological parameters due to its natural variability. To characterize the transmission trajectories of Ebola outbreak, we propose and analyze two SEIR and SEIRHD type transmission models. Using triangular fuzzy numbers for the imprecise parameters, we first study the existence of the equilibria and their stability. Both of the model have two equilibria, namely the disease-free and endemic. Stability of the disease-free and endemic equilibria is related with basic reproduction number that has been calculated from next generation matrix. Stability analysis of the system shows that the disease free equilibrium is locally as well as globally asymptotically stable when the basic reproduction number is less than unity. Under some additional conditions, the model system becomes locally asymptotically stable at unique endemic equilibrium when basic reproduction number is greater than unity. Finally, we perform some numerical experiments to justify the theoretical estimate.