Transmission dynamics of two strain herpes simplex virus

A deterministic model for the transmission dynamics of two-strains Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) is developed and analyzed. Following the qualitative analysis of the model, reveals a globally asymptotically stable disease free equilibrium whenever a certain epidemiological threshold known as the reproduction number ( R 0 ), is less than unity and the disease persist in the population whenever this threshold exceed unity. However, it was shown that the endemic equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable for a special case. Numerical simulation of the model reveals that whenever R 1 < 1 < R 2 , strain 2 drives strain 1 to extinction (competitive exclusion) but when R 2 < 1 < R 1 , strain 1 does not drive strain 2 to extinction. Finally, it was shown numerically that super-infection increases the spread of HSV-2 in the model.