Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection which is a major cause of death worldwide. TB is a
curable disease, however the bacterium can become resistant to the first line treatment
against the disease. This leads to a disease called drug resistant TB that is difficult
and expensive to treat. It is well-known that TB disease thrives in communities in overcrowded
environments with poor ventilation, weak nutrition, inadequate or inaccessible
medical care, etc, such as in some prisons or some refugee camps. In particular, the World
Health Organization discovered that a number of prisoners come from socio-economic disadvantaged
population where the burden of TB disease may be already high and access
to medical care may be limited. In this dissertation we propose compartmental models of
systems of differential equations to describe the population dynamics of TB disease under
conditions of crowding. Such models can be used to make quantitative projections of TB
prevalence and to measure the effect of interventions. Indeed we apply these models to
specific regions and for specific purposes. The models are more widely applicable, however
in this dissertation we calibrate and apply the models to prison populations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/7357 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Maku Vyambwera, Sibaliwe |
| Contributors | Witbooi, Peter |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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