Investigating the Impact of TB or COVID-19 Infections on a Population Suffering from TB/COVID-19 Coinfection

Abstract

The discovery that the spread of tuberculosis reduced significantly in the last two years has been associated with the preventive measures placed to combat the spread of COVID-19. This shows a string correlation between the spread of COVID-19 and tuberculosis in any population. It is worth noting that tuberculosis and COVID-19 are among the leading most deadly diseases in the world today. The correlation in their spread also leaves us to believe that the spread of one can enhance the spread of the other. Hence, we propose the situation where a population is co-infected with the two diseases. The mathematical model is formulated using conservative laws and the resulting model analysed. The stability of the co-infection is analysed and the non-negativity conditions for the solution is established. It is found that tuberculosis sub-population reaches the highest capacity when the recruitment into the COVID-19 subpopulation is the lowest while the COVID-19 sub-population is attained when the rate of recruitment into the COVID-19 subpopulation is the highest.