PHD-Department of Mathematics

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Browsing PHD-Department of Mathematics by Subject "HIV Aids"

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    Modeling HIV Aids Dynamics with Funding along the Northern Corridor Highway in Kenya
    (Kenyatta university, 2023) Kimulu, Ancent Makau; Winifred N. Mutuku; Samuel M. Mwalili; David Malonza
    For the past three and a half decades, HIV/AIDS has been a worldwide health problem. Because of its severe repercussions, it necessitates a significant financial commitment to stem its spread and prevent death-related disorders. In 2019, 18.6 million dollars were spent globally to finance HIV response. UNAIDS estimated that the HIV response required $26.2 billion USD by 2020. This emerged as a result of increased infection and fatality rates between 2015 and 2020. East and Southern Africa are the most affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa. However, owing to financial commitments to combat the pandemic, Kenya and South Africa have seen enhanced prevention and treatment facilities, with the largest difficulty being reliance on donors for funding HIV response. Kenya has a record of more than 1.5 million cases of people living with HIV in 2019 with a prevalence of 4.8% among adults in the same year. This ranked Kenya as the seventh-largest HIV population in the world. A recent study among 3,805 truckers along the Northern corridor highway in Kenya found that 55.9% had commercial sex in the past 6 months and 46.6% had regular sex partners along their trucking route besides their wife or girlfriend at home. HIV is mostly spread sexually in Kenya, with a high rate of infection among critical demographics such as sex workers and truckers, among others. Our study was based on the Northern Corridor highway which runs from Mombasa to Busia-Malaba on the Kenya-Uganda border, passing through Nairobi, Mai Mahiu, and Salgaa. The major mechanism of HIV/AIDS transmission along Kenya's Northern Corridor route is transactional sex, which involves financial transfers. The sexual network of truckers are complex and can be a conduit for the widespread of HIV between truckers and FSWs along the corridor. This prompted the need to better understand the dynamics of transmission of HIV/AIDS between truckers and female sex workers. In this study, a model was formulated for HIV/AIDS dynamics along the Northern corridor highway in Kenya which included circumcision and funding of treatment as control measures. The reproduction number, disease-free equilibrium and endemic equilibrium points were determined and their stabilities were also determined using the next-generation matrix method. The disease-free equilibrium is stable when R_0u<1, R_0c<1 and R_0f<1 while the endemic equilibrium point is stable when R_0u>1, R_0c>1 and R_0f>1. It was found that circumcision can be used as an intervention to minimize the infection of HIV among truckers and female sex workers. In addition, a model was developed to investigate the impact of funding on HIV transmission between truckers and female sex workers. According to the model's findings, boosting circumcision and funding decreases the rate of transition from the Susceptible to the Infected classes. Additionally, boosting funding for any class of treatment raises the Treatment class and lowers the total number of AIDS-related deaths. This also indicates that the Kenyan government should increase internal funding for HIV/AIDS due to the dwindling donor funding since 2018. This is because funding is a key in increasing treatment which decreases the AIDS cases.