Abstract:
HIV patients are vulnerable to developing active visceral leishmaniasis (VL). To
understand this complication, we studied a mathematical model for HIV and visceral
leishmaniasis coinfection. In this approach, we reckoned two distinct equilibria: the
disease-free and the endemic equilibria. The local and global stability of the
disease-free equilibrium were thoroughly investigated. To further support the
qualitative findings, we performed simulations to quantify the changes of the
dynamical behavior of the full model for variation of relevant parameters. Increasing
the rate of VL recovery (φ1), the recovery rate for VL–HIV Co-infection (φ2), removing
reservoirs (c1), minimizing the contact rate (βh) are important in controlling the
transmission of individual and co-infection disease of VL and HIV. In conclusion,
possible measures should be implemented to reduce the number of infected
individuals. Therefore, we recommend that policy makers and stakeholders
incorporate these measures during planing and implementation phases to control
the transmission of VL–HIV co-infection.
Keywords: VL; HIV; Co-infection; Mathematical model; Stability analysis; Numerical
simulation
1 Introduction
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) also known as ‘Kala-azar’ is a vector borne, zoonotic disease
caused by Leishmania donovani species [1, 2]. There are more than 20 species of leishmania
that can cause human infection. The infection is transmitted following a successful
bite and inoculation by the infected phlebotomine female sand flies [3, 4]. TheWorld
Health Organization(WHO) considers leishmaniasis as the sixthmost important endemic
disease in the world [5], and it is distributed around the world in 90 countries [6], most
of which are developing countries associated withmalnutrition, population displacement,
poor housing, a weak immune system, and lack of financial resources [6].WHOestimated
that from about 900,000 to 1.3 million new cases of leishmaniasis are reported per year
[1, 2, 6, 7]; of these, approximately 0.2–0.4 million are of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) [6, 7].
The spread of the disease is linked to environmental changes such as deforestation, building
of dams, irrigation schemes, and urbanization [7].
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