A 2-Dimensional Model for the Transmission Dynamics of Schistosomiasis in the Human-Snail Hosts
Abstract
The modes of transmission of schistosomiasis are considered. The transmission model is developed with an aim of establishing possible endemic equilibria within the community. Analysis of the model reveals that if the recovery rate β of human infectives and the death rate of snails δ are increased and if at the same time the contact rate κ of the human hosts with infested water is reduced, the disease gets eradicated from the community. Otherwise, the disease becomes endemic within the community which is a very much undesirable condition for the human population because of the debilitating nature of schistosomiasis. It is found out that this endemic state becomes stable if both the recovery rate β of human infectives and the death rate δ of snails are reduced. It can be made unstable by de-worming the human infectives and killing snails by use of molluscicides. Educating the community about the modes of transmission of the disease helps in reducing the contact rate with infested waters and hence disease prevention.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajassp.2006.1846.1852
Copyright: © 2006 G. Besigye-Bafaki. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Life cycle
- life expectancy
- infected human and snail populations
- endemic equilibrium