Effective Control Strategies for Sex-Structured Transmission Dynamics of Visceral Leishmaniasis

Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL), a chronic disease caused by Leishmania infantum is more prevalent in men. Control strategies that do not take this disparity into account can be sub-optimal. We extended a sex-structured VL model by introducing four control variables: insecticide-treated bed nets, vector control, medical treatment, and animal culling. The study evaluates six intervention strategies and calculates the Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio to assess their impact on disease transmission and cost-effectiveness. The analysis shows that, without interventions, the disease remains endemic with significant health and socio-economic consequences. The Strategy, which applies all four controls, emerges as the most effective and cost-efficient, leading to an exponential reduction in disease prevalence across human, vector, and animal populations. Strategies without animal culling and vector control followed in effectiveness. Moreover, it is found that applying upto 50% of the controls to females, compared to males, can still eliminate VL within the planning period.