Optimal control of deterministic epidemics

Various deterministic optimal control models for SIR-epidemics are investig ated in this paper. The epidemics are governed by a rather general interact ion, which covers most cases studied in the literature. Vaccination, quaran tine, screening or health promotion campaigns as Forms of control are consi dered. In all cases one finds a maximum effort control on some initial time interval. In addition, uniqueness and monotonicity properties of these mod els are studied. The results are also extended to the infinite time-horizon situation. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.