A co-interaction model of HIV and syphilis infection among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men

Abstract

We developed a mathematical model to study the co-interaction of HIV and syphilis infection among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM). We qualitatively analysed the model and established necessary conditions under which disease-free and endemic equilibria are asymptotically stable. We gave analytical expressions for the reproduction number, and showed that whenever the reproduction numbers of sub-models and co-interaction model are less than unity, the epidemics die out, while epidemics persist when they are greater than unity. We presented numerical simulations of the full model and showed qualitative changes of the dynamics of the full model to changes in the transmission rates. Our numerical simulations using a set of reasonable parameter values showed that: (a) both diseases die out or co-exist whenever their reproduction number is less than or exceed unity. (b) HIV infection impacts syphilis prevalence negatively and vice versa. (c) one possibility of lowering the co-infection of HIV and syphilis among gbMSM is to increase both testing and treatment rates for syphilis and HIV infection, and decrease the rate at which HIV infected individuals go off treatment.

Keywords: 00–01; 99-00; HIV; Mathematical model; Reproduction number; Stability; Syphilis; Testing and treatment; gbMSM.