MODELING CHOLERA DISEASE WITH EDUCATION AND CHLORINATION

Cholera, characterized by severe diarrhea and rapid dehydration, is a water-borne infectious disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Haiti offers the most recent example of the tragedy that can befall a country and its people when cholera strikes. While cholera has been a recognized disease for two centuries, there is no strategy for its effective control. We formulate and analyze a mathematical model that includes two essential and affordable control measures: water chlorination and education. We calculate the basic reproduction number and determine the global stability of the disease-free equilibrium for the model without chlorination. We use Latin Hypercube Sampling to demonstrate that the model is most sensitive to education. We also derive the minimal effective chlorination period required to control the disease for both fixed and variable chlorination. Numerical simulations suggest that education is more effective than chlorination in decreasing bacteria and the number of cholera cases.