Optimal Scheduling of Vaccination Campaigns Using a Direct Dynamic Optimization Method

The scheduling of vaccination campaigns determines the feasibility and effectiveness of controlling the proliferation of an epidemic disease. Optimal vaccination strategies can be derived by using optimization methods. However, most of the solution approaches for this target have been based on the indirect dynamic optimization methods, leading to limitations in the scheduling of vaccination campaigns. In this study, the scheduling problem is solved by an efficient direct method known as the combined shooting and collocation approach. In this way, both control and state constraints can be efficiently treated. More importantly, this method allows solving the problem with multiple impulsive vaccinations at arbitrary time points. As a result, the quality of the vaccination can be essentially improved in comparison to the results from the literature. (C) 2016, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.