Title: Modelling the transmission dynamics of coronavirus disease 2019 with treatment as a control strategy: the case of India

Authors: Sonam Gyeltshen; Thinley Tobgay

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Management, Jigme Namgyel Engineering College, Samdrup Jongkhar, Bhutan ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Jigme Namgyel Engineering College, Samdrup Jongkhar, Bhutan

Abstract: This paper models the transmission dynamics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its treatment based on the cases in India, by extending the classic SIR model to include exposed, asymptomatic, and treatment classes with a special focus to investigate the effect of ineffective treatment on the transmissibility of the infection with variation in the treatment initiation. The basic reproduction number was computed to understand the relative effect of early treatment initiation from the delayed treatment initiation on the transmissibility of the infection. With the estimated parameters obtained by faithfully fitting the simulation to the observed data, a global sensitivity analysis carried out indicated the treatment initiation to be one of the most influential parameters to infection control. With this concept, a further analysis revealed that an early treatment initiation can be a helpful control strategy on the transmissibility of the infection. However, for it to happen, an intervention such as proactively doing case finding is deemed important.

Keywords: coronavirus; transmission dynamics; treatment initiation; ineffective treatment; SIR; susceptible, infectious and recovery; global sensitivity analysis; basic reproduction number; symptom onset; control strategy; asymptomatic; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMNO.2022.119778

International Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Optimisation, 2022 Vol.12 No.1, pp.29 - 42

Received: 30 Sep 2020
Accepted: 03 Mar 2021
Published online: 20 Dec 2021 *