The Spread and Quarantine of HIV Infection in a Prison System

Abstract

This paper is concerned with models for the spread of HIV in prisons. A simple deterministic model for the spread of HIV in a single prison is considered, a discrete-time stochastic analogue of it is then discussed, and some simulations of epidemics are provided. The model is generalized to a two-prison system in both the deterministic and stochastic cases. Finally the possibilities for intervention in a prison are outlined and a simple cost-effectiveness analysis in the context of screening and quarantine is undertaken. The computations for the stochastic models make use of a new technique for bounding variability in a Markov chain with a large state space.