Biological and Chemical Control of Mosquito Population by Optimal Control Approach

Juddy Heliana Arias-Castro, Hector Jairo Martinez-Romero and Olga Vasilieva
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Juddy Heliana Arias-Castro: Department of Mathematics, Universidad del Valle, Cali 760032, Colombia
Hector Jairo Martinez-Romero: Department of Mathematics, Universidad del Valle, Cali 760032, Colombia
Olga Vasilieva: Department of Mathematics, Universidad del Valle, Cali 760032, Colombia

Games, 2020, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-25

Abstract: This paper focuses on the design and analysis of short-term control intervention measures seeking to suppress local populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the major transmitters of dengue and other vector-borne infections. Besides traditional measures involving the spraying of larvicides and/or insecticides, we include biological control based on the deliberate introduction of predacious species feeding on the aquatic stages of mosquitoes. From the methodological standpoint, our study relies on application of the optimal control modeling framework in combination with the cost-effectiveness analysis. This approach not only enables the design of optimal strategies for external control intervention but also allows for assessment of their performance in terms of the cost-benefit relationship. By examining numerous scenarios derived from combinations of chemical and biological control measures, we try to find out whether the presence of predacious species at the mosquito breeding sites may (partially) replace the common practices of larvicide/insecticide spraying and thus reduce their negative impact on non-target organisms. As a result, we identify two strategies exhibiting the best metrics of cost-effectiveness and provide some useful insights for their possible implementation in practical settings.

Keywords: mosquito population dynamics; predator-prey system; chemical and biological control; optimal control; cost-effectiveness analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C C7 C70 C71 C72 C73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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