Dengue disease - Applying personal protective measures with delay

• Published in: AIP conference proceedings Vol. 3094; no. 1
• Main Authors: Brito da Cruz, Artur M. C., Rodrigues, Helena Sofia, Monteiro, M. Teresa T.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 07.06.2024
• Subjects: Differential equations; Disease prevention; Infectious diseases; Mosquitoes; Optimal control; Ordinary differential equations; Outbreaks; Public health
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0210657

Dengue is a vector-borne disease considered one of the major concerns in public health especially in tropical and sub-tropical areas. Some prevention measures should be used to reduce the impact of the mosquito bites. In this work, the simultaneous use of three personal protective measures - skin repellent, treated bed net and insecticide-treated clothes - is analyzed. A constrained optimization problem taking into account the recovered humans and the cost of these measures, subject to a system with six ordinary differential equations modeling the interaction human-mosquito, is proposed. The application timing of the measures is crucial to control an eventual outbreak. Using optimal control strategy, the main goal of this work is to identify the best way to implement these measures considering different delays in their application. Five scenarios were considered based on the data from a known outbreak in Madeira Island. It is concluded that the application of these measures as soon as possible have an impact on the reduction of infected people as well as in the total cost of using protective measures, since being implemented early, they avoid the spread of the disease and the outbreak ends faster.