AN OPTIMAL CONTROL MODEL FOR EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE

The most deadly Ebola outbreak in the history, which started in December 2013, is currently under control. The high case fatality rate of the Ebola outbreak inspired local and international control strategies. In this paper, the dynamics of Ebola virus disease is modeled in the presence of three control strategies. The model describes the evolution of the disease in the population when educational campaigns, active case-finding and pharmaceutical interventions are implemented as control strategies against the disease. We prove the existence of an optimal control set and analyze the necessary and sufficient conditions, optimality and transversality conditions. We conclude through numerical simulations that containing an Ebola outbreak needs early and long-term implementation of joint control strategies.