Abstract for: Impact of Production-Inventory Control on the Dynamics of Epidemics

A general production inventory (PI) model is integrated with the traditional disease diffusion (SEIRS) model to understand the role of inventory policies on vaccine preventable epidemic dynamics. An integrated PI-SEIRS model has been described, wherein the demand to the PI component depends on the infected population, and the recovery rate of patients depends on the timely supply of medicines. The performance comparison of PI-SEIRS model and the standalone SEIRS model is carried out using an illustrative influenza epidemic data set. Results show that the supply chain or inventory effects on the epidemic dynamics is significant. A given epidemic can be caused by high infectivity parameter with sufficient supply of medicine or with a low infectivity parameter but insufficient supply of medicine. Also, the use of a standalone SEIRS model overestimates the disease severity, compared to the combined inventory control and epidemics model.