Musa Salihu Sabiu, Qureshi Sania, Zhao Shi, Yusuf Abdullahi, Mustapha Umar Tasiu, He Daihai
Department of Applied Mathematics, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Mathematics, Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil, Nigeria.
Infect Dis Model. 2021;6:448-460. doi: 10.1016/j.idm.2021.01.012. Epub 2021 Feb 18.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) is a novel virus that emerged in China in late 2019 and caused a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The epidemic has largely been controlled in China since March 2020, but continues to inflict severe public health and socioeconomic burden in other parts of the world. One of the major reasons for China's success for the fight against the epidemic is the effectiveness of its health care system and enlightenment (awareness) programs which play a vital role in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nigeria is currently witnessing a rapid increase of the epidemic likely due to its unsatisfactory health care system and inadequate awareness programs. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model to study the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Our model incorporates awareness programs and different hospitalization strategies for mild and severe cases, to assess the effect of public awareness on the dynamics of COVID-19 infection. We fit the model to the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria from 29 March to 12 June 2020. We find that the epidemic could increase if awareness programs are not properly adopted. We presumed that the effect of awareness programs could be estimated. Further, our results suggest that the awareness programs and timely hospitalization of active cases are essential tools for effective control and mitigation of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and beyond. Finally, we perform sensitive analysis to point out the key parameters that should be considered to effectively control the epidemic.
严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）是一种于2019年末在中国出现的新型病毒，它引发了2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行。自2020年3月以来，疫情在中国已基本得到控制，但在世界其他地区仍继续造成严重的公共卫生和社会经济负担。中国抗击疫情取得成功的主要原因之一是其医疗保健系统和宣传（意识）计划的有效性，这些在控制COVID-19大流行中发挥了至关重要的作用。尼日利亚目前正目睹疫情迅速增加，这可能是由于其不尽人意的医疗保健系统和宣传计划不足所致。在本文中，我们提出了一个数学模型来研究COVID-19在尼日利亚的传播动态。我们的模型纳入了宣传计划以及针对轻症和重症病例的不同住院策略，以评估公众意识对COVID-19感染动态的影响。我们将该模型与尼日利亚2020年3月29日至6月12日确诊的COVID-19病例累计数进行拟合。我们发现，如果宣传计划未得到妥善采用，疫情可能会加剧。我们推测宣传计划的效果是可以估计的。此外，我们的结果表明，宣传计划和对现症病例的及时住院治疗是在尼日利亚及其他地区有效控制和缓解COVID-19大流行的重要手段。最后，我们进行敏感性分析以指出有效控制疫情应考虑的关键参数。
