Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Mountain Top University, Ibafo, Nigeria.
Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States of America.
J Theor Biol. 2024 May 21;585:111796. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2024.111796. Epub 2024 Mar 24.
Lymphatic filariasis (LF) has been targeted for elimination as a public health concern by 2030 with a goal to keep the prevalence of LF infections under the 1% threshold. While mass drug administration (MDA) is a primary strategy recommended by WHO, the use of insecticide treated nets (ITN) plays a crucial role as an alternative strategy when MDA cannot be used. In this paper, we use imitation dynamics to incorporate human behavior and voluntary use of ITN into the compartmental epidemiological model of LF transmission. We find the equilibrium states of the dynamics and the ITN usage as it depends on epidemiological parameters and the cost of ITNs. We investigate the conditions under which the voluntary use of ITNs can keep the LF prevalence under the 1% threshold. We found that when the cost of using the ITNs is about 10 smaller than the perceived cost of LF, then the voluntary use of ITNs will eliminate LF as a public health concern. Furthermore, when the ITNs are given away for free, our model predicts that over 80% of the population will use them which would eliminate LF completely in regions where Anopheles are the primary vectors.
淋巴丝虫病 (LF) 已被世界卫生组织 (WHO) 确定为 2030 年消除公共卫生关注的目标，目标是将 LF 感染的流行率保持在 1%以下。虽然大规模药物治疗 (MDA) 是 WHO 推荐的主要策略，但在无法进行 MDA 时，使用驱虫蚊帐 (ITN) 作为替代策略至关重要。在本文中，我们使用模仿动力学将人类行为和 ITN 的自愿使用纳入 LF 传播的隔室流行病学模型中。我们找到了动力学的平衡状态和 ITN 的使用情况，这取决于流行病学参数和 ITN 的成本。我们研究了自愿使用 ITN 的条件，以将 LF 流行率保持在 1%以下。我们发现，当使用 ITN 的成本比 LF 的感知成本低约 10 倍时，自愿使用 ITN 将消除 LF 作为公共卫生关注。此外，当 ITN 免费提供时，我们的模型预测，超过 80%的人口将使用它们，这将在以疟蚊为主要传播媒介的地区完全消除 LF。
