Mathematical modeling and analysis of meningococcal meningitis transmission dynamics

Abstract

Meningococcal meningitis (MCM) is one of the serious public health threats in the tropical and sub-tropical regions. In this paper, we propose an epidemic model to study the transmission dynamics of MCM with high-and low-risk susceptible populations. The model considers two different groups of susceptible individuals depending on the availability of medical resources (MR, including hospitals, health workers, etc.), which varies the infection risk. We find that the model exhibits the phenomenon of backward bifurcation (BB), which increases the difficulty of MCM control since the dynamics are not merely relying on the basic reproduction number, R0. This study explores the effects of MR on the MCM epidemics by mathematical analysis and shows the existence of BB on MCM disease. Our findings suggest that providing adequate MR in a community is crucial in mitigating MCM incidences and deaths, especially, in the MCM endemic regions.