A note on the control of HIV in prisons

✍ Scribed by J. Gani

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 100 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1180-4009
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-095x(199911/12)10:6<677::aid-env383>3.0.co;2-o

✦ Synopsis

This note considers the spread of HIV in a single prison where there is a constant rate of departure and replacement of prisoners. Some of the incoming prisoners will be HIV , and homogeneous mixing within the prison is assumed. HIV is thus spread sexually or by the sharing of intravenous drug users' needles. A deterministic continuous time prison model is examined, and the number of HIV infective prisoners at time t derived. A stochastic analogue of this model is constructed, in the form of a continuous Markov chain, and its embedded chain studied. Finally, a control procedure involving the screening of a proportion of the incoming prisoners, and the quarantining of the HIV individuals is proposed. Its consequences are derived for the deterministic model. The proportion to be screened, given a total expenditure for the screening procedure and the medical costs of quarantined and non-quarantined infectives, can be calculated.