Atangana-Baleanu fractional optimal control for dengue dynamics with stability analysis.

Dengue fever remains a critical public health concern, particularly in regions like Thailand, where the disease exhibits complex transmission dynamics involving human and mosquito populations. Traditional models often fail to address the intricacies of non-local interactions, memory effects, and control dynamics. This research introduces an innovative approach using fractional optimal control problems (FOCPs) integrated with the Atangana-Baleanu fractional derivative in the Caputo sense. The model stratifies human and mosquito populations into detailed compartments, enabling a granular representation of transmission dynamics. The FOCP framework leverages fractional-order equations to incorporate memory-dependent and non-local interactions, ensuring biological feasibility and predictive accuracy. Computational results reveal that the model aligns closely with observed data for dengue fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever, and dengue shock syndrome across fractional orders ranging from 0.83 to 1.00. Sensitivity analyses identify critical parameters, such as biting rates and initial population sizes, as pivotal to disease control. The findings underscore the effectiveness of FOCPs in optimizing public health interventions, offer a robust tool for minimizing infection rates and associated costs. The theoretical global stability analysis confirms the model's reliability in predicting long-term outcomes under varying epidemiological scenarios. Future research could extend this framework to incorporate environmental variables, co-infections, and vaccination strategies, enhancing its applicability across diverse public health challenges. This study represents a significant step forward in the mathematical modeling of epidemic diseases, particularly in optimizing control measures for dengue fever.