Assessing the Impact of Prophylactic Vaccines on HPV Prevalence

Abstract

A mathematical model considering female and male individuals is proposed to evaluate vaccination strategies applied to control of HPV transmission in human population. The basic reproductive number of the disease, $R_0$, is given by the geometric mean of the basic reproductive number of female and male populations. The model has a globally asymptotically stable disease-free equilibrium whenever $R_0 <1$. Furthermore, it has an unique endemic state when $R_0$ exceeds unity which is globally asymptotically stable. Numerical simulations were done to compare several different vaccination schedules. The results showed that the vaccination strategies that do not include vaccination of men can only control the disease if more than 90\% of women are vaccinated. The sensitivity analysis indicated that the relevant parameters to control HPV transmission, in order of importance, are vaccine efficacy times the fraction of population that is vaccinated, disease recovery-rate, and disease transmission rate. Therefore, health politics that promoting the increase of vaccine coverage, and screening for the disease in both population can improve disease control.