Author(s)

Okey Oseloka Onyejekwe^*, Abebe Alemu, Biruk Ambachew, Ayalnesh Tigabie

Computational Mechanics and Dynamical Systems Group, Computational Science Program, Addis Ababa University, Arat Kilo Campus, Addis Ababa , Ethiopia.

Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is an infectious, fatal skin disease of cattle caused by a virus of the family Poxviridae (genus Capripox). In addition, severely affected animals suffer from reduced weight, cessation of milk production and infertility. The aim of this paper is to computationally apply epidemiological (SEIR) and optimal control (OC) techniques to study the transmission and the impact of vaccination on LSD. Based on our numerical experiments, we were able to deduce the overall impact of the optimal strategy adopted for this study on the cattle population for vaccination rates within the range of 0 ≤ v ≤ 0.85. It is shown that the vaccination as a control strategy significantly reduced the effects of LSD on the cattle population if properly managed and that an optimal performance of the control strategy adopted hererin is achieved at an approximate value of v = 0.6.

Lumpy Skin Disease, LSD, Optimal Control, Epidemiology, SEIR

Onyejekwe, O. , Alemu, A. , Ambachew, B. and Tigabie, A. (2019) Epidemiological Study and Optimal Control for Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) in Ethiopia. Advances in Infectious Diseases, 9, 8-24. doi: 10.4236/aid.2019.91002.