Predicting the Effect of Malaria Control Strategies Using Mathematical Modeling Approach

Malaria is a life-threatening disease which has caused enormous public health challenge. A mathematical model describing the dynamics of malaria between the human and vector population is formulated to understand the important parameters in the transmission and develop effective prevention and control strategies. We analysed the model and found that the model has a disease-free equilibrium (DFE) which is locally and globally asymptotically stable if the effective reproduction number can be brought below unity. Our model shows that the infectivity of mildly infected children and adults amplifies the disease burden in a population. It was shown that the model does not undergo the phenomenon of backward bifurcation so long as the recovered children and adults do not lose their acquired immunity and if the infection of mildly infected adult is not high enough to infect susceptible mosquitoes. However, control strategies involving mosquito reduction through high rate of application of insecticide will serve as an effective malaria control strategy. It is further shown that whenever the effective reproduction number is greater than unity the model has a unique endemic equilibrium which is globally stable for the case when there is loss of acquired immunity in children and adults. Numerical simulations show that the presence of all the control strategies is more effective in preventing mild malaria cases in adult and children as compared to severe malaria cases in adult and children.