Modeling the vaccination control of bacterial meningitis transmission dynamics: a case study

Abstract

Bacterial meningitis, which is considered a major concern by the World Health Organization, is a medical emergency that lingers as a terrifying infection in sub-Saharan Africa and other countries in the "meningitis belt" due to the frequent occurrence of the infection and its debilitating effects among survivors, even after treatment. This study presents a novel two-strain compartmental bacterial meningitis model. The disease-free equilibrium was established to be locally and globally asymtotically stable. Numerical simulations were performed to visualize the effects of various model parameters on each compartment. Sensitivity analysis was also performed and it was established that the most sensitive parameter for both strains $ 1 $ and $ 2 $ is the transmission probability, $ \beta $. It was ascertained that bacterial meningitis will not spread in the population if at least $ 25\% $ of the population are immune to the disease.

Keywords

• novel two-strain bacterial meningitis
• streptococcus pneumoniae
• neisseria meningitidis
• vaccination