Open Journal of Mathematical Sciences
Vol. 7 (2023), Issue 1, pp. 269-278
ISSN: 2523-0212 (Online) 2616-4906 (Print)
DOI: 10.30538/oms2023.0210
Modelling the Dynamics of Multi-strain COVID-19 Transmission
Joel N. Ndam\(^{1,}\)* and Stephen T. Agba\(^{2}\)
\(^{1}\) Department of Mathematics, University of Jos, Nigeria; ndamj@unijos.edu.ng
\(^{2}\) Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo, Nigeria
Copyright © 2023 Joel N. Ndam and Stephen T. Agba. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: April 18, 2023 – Accepted: August 11, 2023 – Published: November 08, 2023
Abstract
It is on record that rolling out COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the fastest for any vaccine production worldwide. Despite this prompt action taken to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19, the disease persists. One of the reasons for the persistence of the disease is that the vaccines do not confer immunity against the infections. Moreover, the virus-causing COVID-19 mutates, rendering the vaccines less effective on the new strains of the disease. This research addresses the multi-strains transmission dynamics and herd immunity threshold of the disease. Local stability analysis of the disease-free steady state reveals that the pandemic can be contained when the basic reproduction number, \(R_{0}\) is brought below unity. The results of numerical simulations also agree with the theoretical results. The herd immunity thresholds for some of the vaccines against COVID-19 were computed to guide the management of the disease. This model can be applied to any strain of the disease. .
Keywords:
Strain; Multi-strain; Vaccine; Vccine efficiency; Herd immunity; Normalised sensitivity index.