×

Vector control for the Chikungunya disease. (English) Zbl 1259.92071

Summary: We previously proposed a compartmental model to explain the outbreak of Chikungunya disease i the Réunion island, a French territory in the Indian ocean, and other countries in 2005 and possible links with the explosive epidemic of 2006. In this paper, we asked whether it would have been possible to contain or stop the epidemic of 2006 through appropriate mosquito control tools. Based on new results on the Chikungunya virus, its impact on the mosquito life-span, and several experiments done by health authorities, we studied several types of control tools used in 2006 to contain the epidemic. We present an analysis of the model, and we develop a new nonstandard finite difference scheme to provide several simulations with and without mosquito control. Our preliminary study shows that an early use of a combination of massive spraying and mechanical control (like the destruction of breeding sites) can be efficient, to stop or contain the propagation of Chikungunya infection, with a low impact on the environment.

MSC:

92C60 Medical epidemiology
93C95 Application models in control theory
39A60 Applications of difference equations
92-08 Computational methods for problems pertaining to biology