Hepatitis C virus fractional-order model: mathematical analysis

Mathematical analysis of epidemics is crucial for the prediction of diseases over time and helps to guide decision makers in terms of public health policy. It is in this context that the purpose of this paper is to study a fractional-order differential mathematical model of HCV infection dynamics, incorporating two fundamental modes of transmission of the infection; virus-to-cell and cell-to-cell along with a cure rate of infected cells. The model includes four compartments, namely, the susceptible hepatocytes, the infected ones, the viral load and the humoral immune response, which is activated in the host to attack the virus. Each compartment involves a long memory effect that is modeled by a Caputo fractional derivative. Our paper starts with the investigation of some basic analytical results. First, we introduce some preliminaries about the needed fractional calculus tools. Next, we establish the well-posedness of our mathematical model in terms of proving the existence, positivity and boundedness of solutions. We present the different problem steady states depending on some reproduction numbers. After that, the paper moves to the stage of proving the global stability of the three steady states. To evaluate the theoretical study of the global stability, we apply a numerical method based on the fundamental theorem of fractional calculus as well as a three-step Lagrange polynomial interpolation method. The numerical simulations show that the free-endemic equilibrium is stable if the basic reproduction number is less than unity. In addition, the numerical tests demonstrate the stability of the other endemic equilibria under some optimal conditions. It is observed that the numerical simulations and the founding theoretical results are coherents.