The Impact of Media on the Control of Infectious Diseases.

We develop a three dimensional compartmental model to investigate the impact of media coverage to the spread and control of infectious diseases (such as SARS) in a given region/area. Stability analysis of the model shows that the disease-free equilibrium is globally-asymptotically stable if a certain threshold quantity, the basic reproduction number (), is less than unity. On the other hand, if , it is shown that a unique endemic equilibrium appears and a Hopf bifurcation can occur which causes oscillatory phenomena. The model may have up to three positive equilibria. Numerical simulations suggest that when and the media impact is stronger enough, the model exhibits multiple positive equilibria which poses challenge to the prediction and control of the outbreaks of infectious diseases. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007.