Co-dynamics of COVID-19 and TB with COVID-19 vaccination and exogenous reinfection for TB: An optimal control application

Abstract

COVID-19 and Tuberculosis (TB) are among the major global public health problems and diseases with major socioeconomic impacts. The dynamics of these diseases are spread throughout the world with clinical similarities which makes them difficult to be mitigated. In this study, we formulate and analyze a mathematical model containing several epidemiological characteristics of the co-dynamics of COVID-19 and TB. Sufficient conditions are derived for the stability of both COVID-19 and TB sub-models equilibria. Under certain conditions, the TB sub-model could undergo the phenomenon of backward bifurcation whenever its associated reproduction number is less than one. The equilibria of the full TB-COVID-19 model are locally asymptotically stable, but not globally, due to the possible occurrence of backward bifurcation. The incorporation of exogenous reinfection into our model causes effects by allowing the occurrence of backward bifurcation for the basic reproduction number R0 < 1 and the exogenous reinfection rate greater than a threshold (η > η∗). The analytical results show that reducing R0 < 1 may not be sufficient to eliminate the disease from the community. The optimal control strategies were proposed to minimize the disease burden and related costs. The existence of optimal controls and their characterization are established using Pontryagin's Minimum Principle. Moreover, different numerical simulations of the control induced model are carried out to observe the effects of the control strategies. It reveals the usefulness of the optimization strategies in reducing COVID-19 infection and the co-infection of both diseases in the community.