TITLE:
Mathematical Modelling of the Impact of Misdiagnosis on Dengue-Malaria Co-Infection Dynamics
AUTHORS:
Eyaran Wilson Ewesit, Mary Wainaina, Damian Maingi
KEYWORDS:
Basic Reproductive Number, Coinfection Dynamics, Malaria-Dengue Fever, Equilibrium Points, Mathematical Modelling, Numerical Simulations
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics,
Vol.14 No.9,
September
9,
2026
ABSTRACT: Malaria and dengue fever are among the leading causes of Undifferentiated Febrile Illness (AUFI) which account for majority visits to the hospital in Africa. The diseases are spread through biting of mosquitoes making coifection a very common phenomena in tropical and subtropical regions due to high prevalence of mosquito populations. A common challenge of managing both diseases in Africa is misdiagnosis of dengue fever for malaria due to similarities in symptoms and limited resources for accurate diagnosis. This research focused on developing a mathematical epidemiological model to investigate the impact of misdiagnosis of dengue fever as malaria on the general spread dynamics of malaria and dengue fever. The analytical properties of the spread dynamics were studied. The model was determined to be mathematically well stated and biologically well posed by ensuring the positivity and boundedness of the solutions. The co-infection-free Equilibrium was determined to exist using the jacobian matrix method. The co-infection reproductive number was calculated using the next generation matrix approach. The existence of the endemic equilibrium was determined. The normalized forward approach was used to determine the sensitivity indices and identified the parameters that most likely to be targeted for control of the malaria-dengue fever coinfection spread dynamics. Numerical simulations were conducted to obtain the numerical values of the sensitivity analysis and the numerical solutions to the spread dynamics.