https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-04910-z
Regular Article
Unravelling the dynamics of Lassa fever transmission with nosocomial infections via non-fractional and fractional mathematical models
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria
Received:
3
November
2023
Accepted:
16
January
2024
Published online:
1
February
2024
Lassa fever (LF) is still a health challenge in Nigeria. Thus, this paper presents a classical deterministic compartmental model of LF dynamics which does not only capture the transmission routes from symptomatic humans and infected rodents but also from hospitalised humans to account for the nosocomial transmission of the disease. Using the least squares method, the model is fitted to the corresponding cumulative number of weekly reported cases obtained from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control database. The basic reproduction number of the model is calculated using the next-generation matrix approach. This threshold is used to verify the conditions for which the Lassa fever-free and Lassa fever-present equilibria exist. Analysis of the model shows that hospitalised individuals amplify the burden of LF in the community because the cumulative number of new cases become high when the infection in the hospitalised humans to infect the susceptible humans is increasing towards the same level as for the symptomatic humans. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to further reveal the most sensitive parameters driving the dynamics of the disease transmission. To capture the memory effects, which is important in the spread process of LF, the proposed classical LF model is re-formulated as a fractional-order deterministic model via Caputo derivative operator. The fractional derivative is discretised using a reliable numerical scheme based on Lagrange interpolation polynomial. The existence and uniqueness of solutions of the fractional-order model are examined by employing the Banach fixed point theory. Numerical experiments are carried out to explore the behaviours of the Caputo fractional-order LF model under the varying values of the memory index. It is observed that the trajectories of the infected human and rodent compartments criss-crossed for different memory index values.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
