Modelling the effect of screening on the spread of HIV infection in a homogeneous population with infective immigrants

In this paper, a deterministic mathematical model is proposed and analyzed to study the effect of screening on the spread of HIV infection in a homogeneous population with infective immigrants. Two classes of infected populations are considered, namely; those who are infected but do not know their HIV status and those who are infected and are aware of their HIV disease status. Susceptible are assumed to become infected via sexual contacts with infectives and all infectives move with a constant rate to develop AIDS. The model is analyzed using the stability theory of differential equations and numerical simulation. The model analysis shows that screening of unaware infectives has the effect of reduc¬ing the spread of the AIDS epidemic in a homogeneous population with infective migrations. Sensitivity analysis shows that the proportion of unaware immigrants and contact rate of unaware infected individuals with susceptible, are the most sensitive parameters to decrease the incidence rate whenever detection rate is sufficiently large. Numerical simulation of the model reveals the benefits of im¬plementing screening as the basic control strategy to all individuals.