Alexander Yu Tang and Maurice HT Ling*

School of Applied Sciences, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore

*Corresponding Author: Maurice HT Ling, School of Applied Sciences, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore.

Received: April 27, 2022; Published: May 12, 2022

Abstract

Global drug epidemic is an important public health issue. Mathematical modelling is vital for gaining insights, which may inform policymaking. Several modelling studies fail to adequately address relapse, which includes rapid relapse into heavy or light drug use, and relapse after extended sobriety. Here, we study the impact of relapses by incorporating relapse processes into an existing 6-compartment model. Our results show that the proportions of drug users are higher with relapse processes than that without relapse processes; yet, the proportion of rehabilitation is lower with relapse than without relapse. This highlights the importance of relapse processes in modelling drug epidemic.

Keywords: Drug Epidemic Model; Relapse; ODE; Sensitivity Analysis

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Citation

Citation: Alexander Yu Tang and Maurice HT Ling. “Relapse Processes are Important in Modelling Drug Epidemic”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 6.6 (2022): 177-182.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Alexander Yu Tang and Maurice HT Ling. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.