ZOONOTIC VISCERAL LEISHMANIASIS: A NOVEL MODEL INVOLVING DYNAMIC INTERACTIONS OF HUMANS, DOGS AND SANDFLIES

摘要

Brazil is one of the high endemic countries for visceral leishmaniasis (VL): according to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the annual number of new human cases and deaths due to VL has been increasing for the last 20 years. In this work, we developed a novel optimization model for VL control with five potential preventive control methods: (1) insecticide-impregnated dog collar, (2) dog vaccination, (3) infected dog culling, (4) infected dog treatment and (5) sandfly population control. Using a set of differential equations we simulated the dynamic of this disease and the optimal control strategy is examined considering the best cost-benefit relationship for these five control methods. Although this model is based on the previous model from Burattini et al. (1998) and Ribas et al. (2013), here we simulated with most of parameters updated and we included new categories that represent vaccinated dogs and dogs with insecticide impregnated collar. As conclusion, we obtained a good representation of the zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis dynamics and we found the sandfly population control as the best individual strategy to reduce the human incidence of this disease.