Bifurcation Analysis and Optimal Control of an SEIR Model with Limited Medical Resources and Media Impact on Heterogeneous Networks

The spread of epidemic diseases is often considered to be bound up with human behavior. Both treatment and awareness-raising are seen as important preventive measures during an outbreak. In this paper, an SEIR model on heterogeneous network containing saturated treatment function with media information variable is constructed. Through mathematical analysis, the basic reproduction number and equilibriums of the system are derived. The global stability of disease-free equilibrium is further proved based on LaSalle’s invariant principle. It is also found that with a gradual increase of the delayed treatment parameter, the system exhibits a transition from forward bifurcation to backward bifurcation with the variation of the basic reproduction number. Finally, an optimal control problem is formulated with both treatment rate and media information dissemination rate as control variables and solved using the Pontryagin’s maximum principle. All the above results are verified by numerical experiments.