Impact of nonlinear infection rate on HIV/AIDS considering prevalence‐dependent awareness

An HIV/AIDS transmission model is constructed and analyzed that assimilates spontaneous change in human behavior depending on the disease prevalence incorporating self‐shielding mechanism and treatment control. It is assumed that human population become aware of HIV disease from exposed environment and are conscious enough to make their knowledge fruitful by adopting self‐protective measures to reduce disease transmission. We introduce Hill type of behavioral change function and an awareness‐induced transmission function associated with nonlinear infection rate. We emphasize the effectiveness of human awareness in controlling HIV epidemic by investigating the impact of nonlinear incidence rate. Further, an optimal control model is formulated and solved to find the strategy of applying treatment considering spontaneous response of people towards HIV disease. In the numerical simulation segment, impacts of significant parameters have been assessed using sophisticated techniques. We calibrate the proposed model with the real data of HIV cases in India and estimate some crucial model parameters. Moreover, different amalgamations of preventive and treatment controls are introduced. The optimal treatment control has massive impact in curbing HIV epidemic. Also, combined strategy of prevention and treatment can curtail the disease with economic gain. It reveals that effective response of individuals can suppress the disease in such an unexpected situation when treatment rate is low. Increasing the efficacy of human consciousness is much beneficial in curbing HIV outbreak. Thus, our findings highlight a path to control HIV epidemic with uninstructed modification of human behavior by boosting up the productivity of their existing knowledge.