Dynamical study of Malaria epidemic: Stability and cost-effectiveness analysis in the context of Ghana

Abstract

The Malaria epidemic is a serious public health issue that is worrying to the affected people in the tropics and subtropical parts of the world. The alarming consequences of the disease have prompted the scientific communities to seek better ways to manage the disease. In Ghana, the accurate statistical estimate of the Malaria transmission parameters is paramount to the public Health to embark on a transmission reduction program but rarely exists. The study’s purpose is to undertake a comprehensive mathematical analysis of a newly designed compartmentalized vector-host Malaria model capturing the aquatic mosquito vector compartment and vaccinated human host for the goal of estimating the model’s parameters and the threshold $R_0$ computation and examining the associated bifurcation type that invokes at the Malaria-free state. The study thoroughly analyses the asymptomatic stability of the model to classify the respective behaviours at the equilibria. A sensitivity study of LHS-PRCC was undertaken to measure the variability in the threshold $R_0$. Further, the model was subjected to a comprehensive analysis to assess the impact of vaccines on the dynamics of the disease. The analysis showed that vaccines have a substantial impact in reducing the Malaria cases in Ghana. To have a more reliable and accurate estimation of the model parameters of Ghana and robust mitigating intervention protocols for public health officials, the Least square fitting approach is applied to data of Ghana for an extended period of 10 years, starting from 2010 to 2020, to estimate the model’s parameters. The Malaria model was further structured into an intervention model to provide tailored eradication strategies for curtailing the disease. To exemplify the cost-effective procedure for assessing the cost related to the identified interventions, the ACER and ICER were used to analyse the cost of each intervention per the benefit. The results from the analyses suggest that increasing accessibility and executing a control intervention of 8 as identified by the cost analysis by Public Health will assist in mitigating the disease with a comparatively minimal cost.