Implementation of different Control Strategies for leprosy individuals considering Quality of Life (QoL) with associated Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA)

Leprosy has been affecting lives for thousands of years and the stigma, social embarrassment, lack of proper knowledge associated with it make the day-to-day life of a person with leprosy truly miserable which eventually paves the way of late diagnosis, complication of infection and hinders the progress of disease elimination. In this research article, we considered a four-dimensional system of non-linear differential equations with the infected class divided into two sub-classes: asymptomatic and symptomatic. We have examined the effects of stigma using an alternative approach that assesses the quality of life of individuals affected by leprosy. We have incorporated two control intervention measures, namely, household contact surveys and early treatment, into the system to study the behavior of the optimal control-induced system. While developing the control strategies utilizing Pontryagin’s minimization technique, our principal aim remains to inhibit the asymptomatic infections which eventually declines the compartmental transfer of infections into symptomatic individuals. Additionally, we focus on recovering symptomatic infected individuals in a practical and cost-effective manner. All the analytical outcomes obtained in this study are verified through numerical examples and compared with real world clinical scenarios as well.