Mathematical modeling of COVID-19 epidemic with effect of awareness programs

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) is a novel virus that emerged in China in late 2019 and caused a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The epidemic has largely been controlled in China since March 2020, but continues to inflict severe public health and socioeconomic burden in other parts of the world. One of the major reasons for China’s success for the fight against the epidemic is the effectiveness of its health care system and enlightenment (awareness) programs which play a vital role in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nigeria is currently witnessing a rapid increase of the epidemic likely due to its unsatisfactory health care system and inadequate awareness programs. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model to study the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in Nigeria. Our model incorporates awareness programs and different hospitalization strategies for mild and severe cases, to assess the effect of public awareness on the dynamics of COVID-19 infection. We fit the model to the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria from 29 March to 12 June 2020. We find that the epidemic could increase if awareness programs are not properly adopted. We presumed that the effect of awareness programs could be estimated. Further, our results suggest that the awareness programs and timely hospitalization of active cases are essential tools for effective control and mitigation of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and beyond. Finally, we perform sensitive analysis to point out the key parameters that should be considered to effectively control the epidemic.