Optimized SEIR Model for Predicting and Controlling Diphtheria Outbreaks in Nigeria

Diphtheria persists to be a major public health concern in Nigeria, with recurrent outbreaks continuing to plague many states. This study introduces a modified Susceptible-ExposedInfectious-Recovered (SEIR) model that incorporates intervention strategies based on optimization, to predict and potentially control future diphtheria outbreaks. This study provides an optimized SEIR model that incorporates Pontryagin's Maximum Principle (PMP), to design dynamic vaccination and treatment strategies in order to minimize diphtheria transmission. By employing Runge-Kutta solvers in Python and MATLAB, the study demonstrates that optimized control strategies reduce cases by 45%, making them a viable tool for epidemic containment and resource allocation in low-resource settings.