Partial Differential Equations in Applied Mathematics (Mar 2024)
Precision in disease dynamics: Finite difference solutions for stochastic epidemics with treatment cure and partial immunity
Abstract
The complex and ever-changing characteristics of epidemic modelling, particularly when considering random elements, provide a substantial obstacle in creating precise and practical numerical methods for solving differential equations. This study contributes to this effort by introducing an innovative finite difference method for linear and non-linear stochastic and deterministic differential equations. This scheme expands explicitly upon the Euler Maruyama method, improving its precision for the deterministic aspect while ensuring coherence in dealing with stochastic terms. This contribution provides a numerical scheme that can be used to find solutions to linear and non-linear stochastic and deterministic differential equations. The scheme can be considered as the extension of the Euler Maruyama scheme for solving stochastic differential equations. The Euler Maruyama scheme offers a first-order accuracy of the deterministic model. Still, this scheme provides second-order accuracy for the deterministic part, whereas the integration of stochastic terms is the same in both schemes. The scheme is employed in a stochastic diffusive epidemic model with the effect of treatment, cure, and partial immunity. The comparison of the proposed scheme with the existing nonstandard finite difference method is made, and it is shown that the proposed scheme performs better than the nonstandard finite difference method in accuracy for the deterministic differential equations. It is also demonstrated that susceptible people rise whereas infected and recovered people decline by enhancing treatment cure rate. How does the cure rate of the treatment influence the number of the three populations, i.e., S(t), I(t), and R(t)? The results from the numerical simulation have provided useful insights into the dynamics of the epidemic model under various settings. This is particularly useful for influencing any public health plan and intervention. Thus, this work contributes numerical approaches and is an essential tool for epidemiological studies.
