Modeling the Spread of Infectious Diseases Malaria

Malaria is a parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes that kills 1.5-2.7 million people per year.  Malaria remains a major concern for the World Health Organization despite extensive research. Computer simulation models have been used to research disease carrier management strategies in recent years. The development of a simulation model based on the Agent modeling of the malaria is being considered in this study. Given that the spread of this disease depends on various environmental, geographical and social factors. Therefore, this study focuses on evaluating the impact of effective environmental and geographical factors, on the spread of the disease in Bandzarak rural district of Hormozgan province and also examines the impact of control measures and policies to prevent the spread of the disease. Humans and female Anopheles mosquitoes were used as factors in this study to model the spread of malaria, and the land cover map of the study area was used as a simulation environment. Temperature, humidity, distance from stagnant water, distance from vegetation, and human population density were chosen as effective factors in the spread of malaria in this research. In order to test and evaluate the model, four experimental scenarios were designed, during which the effect of different factors in the model was investigated. The results showed the sensitivity of the model to these factors and the relative superiority of 20% of the recovery parameter in controlling this disease. It was also shown that simple scenarios can show and evaluate the effectiveness of control measures in reducing and controlling the disease. Control policies are meant to avoid disease transmission by drying stagnant water, using protective nets, killing mosquitoes at the start of the warm season, and deteriorating health conditions, with the result that using protective nets is the most effective way to prevent disease transmission.