Optimal neuro-fuzzy control of hepatitis C virus integrated by genetic algorithm.

Hepatitis C blood born virus is a major cause of liver disease that more than three per cent of people in the world is dealing with, and the spread of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in different populations is one of the most important issues in epidemiology. In the present study, a new intelligent controller is developed and tested to control the hepatitis C infection in the population which the authors refer to as an optimal adaptive neuro-fuzzy controller. To design the controller, some data is required for training the employed adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) which is selected by the genetic algorithm. Using this algorithm, the best control signal for each state condition is chosen in order to minimise an objective function. Then, the prepared data is utilised to build and train the Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy structure of the ANFIS and this structure is used as the controller. Simulation results show that there is a significant decrease in the number of acute-infected individuals by employing the proposed control method in comparison with the case of no intervention. Moreover, the authors proposed method improves the value of the objective function by 19% compared with the ordinary optimal control methods used previously for HCV epidemic.