A simulation study to assess the epidemiological impact of pneumonia transmission dynamics in high-risk populations

Abstract

The term “high-risk population” refers to individuals with an increased likelihood of contracting a severe illness or disease due to factors such as age, underlying medical conditions, pregnancy, geographical location, or a combination of these factors. This paper proposes a mathematical model of pneumonia focusing on the high-risk infected population: children under five years of age and adults over 65 years. A mathematical analysis is presented, and numerical simulations are conducted to investigate the impact of various model parameters on infection rates within each subpopulation. We employed Latin hypercube sampling for a global sensitivity analysis using the number of infectious individuals as a response function to identify the most influential parameters on the infection dynamics. Numerical results suggest that prompt and effective treatment at the onset of the disease is essential to control the spread of pneumonia among children under five and adults older than 65.