Modeling the Impact of Optimal Control Strategies on the Dynamics of Zika Virus Disease Using the Sterile Insect Technology

This work is aimed at formulating a mathematical model for the control of zika virus infection using Sterile Insect Technology (SIT). The model is extended to incorporate optimal control strategy by introducing three control measures. The optimal control is aimed at minimizing the number of Exposed human, Infected human and the total number of Mosquitoes in a population and as such reducing contacts between mosquitoes and human, human to human and above all, eliminates the population of Mosquitoes. The Pontryagin’s maximum principle was used to obtain the necessary conditions, find the optimality system of our model and to obtain solution to the control problem. Numerical simulations result shows that; reduction in the number of Exposed human population, Infected human population and reduction in the entire population of Mosquito population is best achieved using the optimal control strategy.