Ebola virus disease model with a nonlinear incidence rate and density-dependent treatment

This paper studies an Ebola epidemic model with an exponential nonlinear incidence function that considers the efficacy and the behaviour change. The current model also incorporates a new density-dependent treatment that catches the impact of the disease transmission on the treatment. Firstly, we provide a theoretical study of the nonlinear differential equations model obtained. More precisely, we derive the effective reproduction number and, under suitable conditions, prove the stability of equilibria. Afterwards, we show that the model exhibits the phenomenon of backward-bifurcation whenever the bifurcation parameter and the reproduction number are less than one. We find that the bi-stability and backward-bifurcation are not automatically connected in epidemic models. In fact, when a backward-bifurcation occurs, the disease-free equilibrium may be globally stable. Numerically, we use well-known standard tools to fit the model to the data reported for the 2018–2020 Kivu Ebola outbreak, and perform the sensitivity analysis. To control Ebola epidemics, our findings recommend a combination of a rapid behaviour change and the implementation of a proper treatment strategy with a high level of efficacy. Secondly, we propose and analyze a fractional-order Ebola epidemic model, which is an extension of the first model studied. We use the Caputo operator and construct the Grünwald-Letnikov nonstandard finite difference scheme, and show its advantages.