A deterministic model for the transmission dynamics of a communicable disease is developed and rigorously analysed. The model, consisting of five mutually exclusive compartments representing the human dynamics, has a globally asymptotically stable disease-free equilibrium (DFE) whenever a certain epidemiological threshold, known as the basic reproduction number (ℛ₀), is less than unity; in such a case the endemic equilibrium does not exist. On the other hand, when the reproduction number is greater than unity, it is shown, using nonlinear Lyapunov function of Goh-Volterra type, in conjunction with the LaSalle's invariance principle, that the unique endemic equilibrium of the model is globally asymptotically stable under certain conditions. Furthermore, the disease is shown to be uniformly persistent whenever ℛ₀ > 1.