Mathematical modelling of transmission and control strategies of cervical cancer

Cervical Cancer is the second most leading causes of serious illness and deaths among women around the world, after breast cancer. In this dissertation, a mathematical model of the transmission dynamics of Human Papilloma Viruses/Cervical Cancer Model is formulated and analysed with the aim of understanding its transmission dynamics. The population is divided into seven subclasses namely; susceptible, screened, vaccinated infectives, precancerous, invasive cancer and treated infectives. The impact of control and prevention strategies (treatment, vaccination and screening) in preventing the spread of disease has been determined. Conditions for the clearance or persistence of the Cervical Cancer infection through the stability of the equilibria are derived. We infer the impact of control strategies on the dynamics of the disease through sensitivity analysis of the effective reproduction number, from which the results show that, the combination of treatment, vaccination and screening can eradicate the Cervical Cancer infection if the effective reproduction number can be reduced below unity. Sensitivity analysis and numerical simulations are carried out to illustrate the analytical results and test the effects of certain parameters. The sensitivity analysis identifies the rate of transmission, vaccine protection, treatment rates of the infective, precancerous and invasive cancer, plus vaccination and the waning rate of vaccine as the main factors in facilitating the spread and control parameters of the disease. The results of the study show that the combination of screening, vaccination and treatment programmes targeting women with Cervical Cancer can effectively eliminate the suffering caused by Cervical Cancer from the population if these programmes can reduce the effective reproduction number below unity.