Modelling the impacts of media campaign and double dose vaccination in controlling COVID-19 in Nigeria

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a lethal disease that poses public health challenges in both developed and developing countries around the world. Owing to the recent ongoing clinical use of COVID-19 vaccines and non-compliance with COVID-19 health protocols, this study presents a deterministic model with an optimal control problem for assessing the community-level impact of the media campaign and double-dose vaccination on the transmission and control of COVID-19. detailed analysis of the model shows that using the Lyapunov function theory and the theory of the centre manifold, the dynamics of the model are determined essentially by the control reproduction number (Rmv ). Consequently, the model undergoes the phenomenon of forward bifurcation in the absence of double dose vaccination effects, where the global disease-free equilibrium is obtained whenever Rmv ≤ 1. Numerical simulations of the model using data relevant to the transmission dynamics of the disease in Nigeria show that certain values of the basic reproduction number ((R0 ≥ 7)) may not prevent the spread of the pandemic even if 100% media compliance is achieved. Nevertheless, with the assumed 75% (at R0 = 4)) media efficacy of double dose vaccination, community herd immunity to the disease can be attained. Furthermore, Pontryagin′s maximum principle was used for the analysis of the optimized model, by which necessary conditions for optimal controls were obtained. In addition, the optimal simulation results reveal that, for situations where the cost of implementing the controls (media campaign and double dose vaccination) considered in this study is low, allocating resources to a media campaign-only strategy is more effective than allocating them to a first-dose vaccination strategy. More so, as expected, the combined media campaign-double dose vaccination strategy yields a higher population-level impact than the media campaign-only strategy, double-dose vaccination strategy, or media campaign-first dose vaccination strategy.