Optimal long-run control of endemic infections: bang-bang threshold policies in a stochastic SIS model

RESUMO

We study long-run optimal intervention strategies for endemic infections in a stochastic susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model. The proportion of infected individuals evolves as a diffusion process with random fluctuations, while a control variable $\zeta_t\in[0,\tilde{\zeta}_{max}]$ represents the intensity of public health interventions that reduce transmission for some intervention threshold $\tilde{\zeta}_{max}\in (0,1]$. The objective is to minimize the long-run average societal cost, balancing the burden of infection against the costs of interventions. Under a concave intervention cost structure the problem can be formulated as an ergodic stochastic control problem, whose structure implies (under certain additional conditions) that optimal interventions are of bang-bang type, switching between no intervention and the maximal admissible intervention at a single switching threshold in the infection level. We construct candidate value functions, rigorously verify optimality in this single-threshold case, and relate the results to extinction and persistence properties of the underlying SIS dynamics in the absence of control. In our framework, the analysis provides a rigorous justification for the threshold-based intervention rules commonly used in epidemic management.