A new epidemics–logistics model: Insights into controlling the Ebola virus disease in West Africa

Compartmental models have been a phenomenon of studying epidemics. However, existing compartmental models do not explicitly consider the spatial spread of an epidemic and logistics issues simultaneously. In this study, we address this limitation by introducing a new epidemics–logistics mixed-integer programming (MIP) model that determines the optimal amount, timing and location of resources that are allocated for controlling an infectious disease outbreak while accounting for its spatial spread dynamics. The objective of this proposed model is to minimize the total number of infections and fatalities under a limited budget over a multi-period planning horizon. The present study is the first spatially explicit optimization approach that considers geographically varying rates for disease transmission, migration of infected individuals over different regions, and varying treatment rates due to the limited capacity of treatment centers. We illustrate the performance of the MIP model using the case of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Our results provide explicit information on intervention timing and intensity for each specific region of these most affected countries. Our model predictions closely fit the real outbreak data and suggest that large upfront investments in treatment and isolation result in the most efficient use of resources to minimize infections. The proposed modeling framework can be adopted to study other infectious diseases and provide tangible policy recommendations for controlling an infectious disease outbreak over large spatial and temporal scales.