Mathematical analysis of a fractional-order epidemic model with nonlinear incidence function

Abstract

In this paper, we are interested in studying the spread of infectious disease using a fractional-order model with Caputo’s fractional derivative operator. The considered model includes an infectious disease that includes two types of infected class, the first shows the presence of symptoms (symptomatic infected persons), and the second class does not show any symptoms (asymptomatic infected persons). Further, we considered a nonlinear incidence function, where it is obtained that the investigated fractional system shows some important results. In fact, different types of bifurcation are obtained, as saddle-node bifurcation, transcritical bifurcation, Hopf bifurcation, where it is discussed in detail through the research. For the numerical part, a proper numerical scheme is used for the graphical representation of the solutions. The mathematical findings are checked numerically. © 2022 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press.