A mathematical model to investigate the effect of misdiagnosis and wrong treatment in the co-circulation and co-infection of Malaria and Zika virus disease

Year 2025, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 79 - 110, 30.04.2025

Emmanuel Chidiebere Duru , Michael C. Anyanwu Mbah Godwin Christopher Ezike

https://doi.org/10.59292/bulletinbiomath.1711811

Abstract

Malaria and Zika virus disease are infectious diseases transmitted among humans through the bites of an infectious female Anopheles and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, respectively. In areas where the two diseases co-circulate, their coinfection is possible. Both diseases exhibit similar characteristic symptoms, hence one can be misdiagnosed as the other. In this work, we use a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations to present a new model for the coinfection of the two diseases. The dynamics of the individual diseases are also shown. The disease-free equilibrium (DFE) points of the individual diseases are seen to be both locally and globally asymptotically stable when their respective basic reproduction numbers are less than one. But, the coinfection-free equilibrium (CFE) is seen to be only locally asymptotically stable when the basic reproduction number $\mathcal{R}_{mz}$ is less than one, and unstable otherwise. However, the CFE may not be globally stable when \(\mathcal{R}_{mz}<1\) due to the reinfection of malaria-infected humans with Zika virus and vice versa. This shows that bringing down the reproduction number, $\mathcal{R}_{mz}$, to less than one may not be enough to eradicate the coinfection of the two diseases. The effects of right and wrong treatment are also shown. It is also shown that where the two mosquitoes co-exist, an increase in the population of one of them will lead to a corresponding increase in the other, as both mosquitoes are affected by the same environmental conditions. Thus, an increase in the spread of malaria will lead to an increase in the spread of Zika virus disease as both diseases co-circulate.

Keywords

Malaria, Zika virus, coinfection, mis-diagnosis, wrong treatment

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