Summary: Hepatitis B virus infection remains a major public health concern in many developing countries in the world. In this paper, we formulate and analyse a simple deterministic model to assess the dynamics and control of the disease using ordinary differential equations. To analyse the effect of the initial transmission of the disease we compute the basic reproduction number \(\mathscr{R}_0\) and perform stability analysis. The results show that both the disease-free equilibrium and the endemic equilibrium are globally stable with respect to the value of \(\mathscr{R}_0\). Results also show that \(\mathscr{R}_0\) is highly affected by the vertical transmission and the recovery rate of the chronic carriers after screening and treatment. Therefore, effective mechanisms which will reduce vertical transmission are needed as well as effective screening of individuals, so that those who will be found infected get treated. Further results from numerical analysis show that when the disease is introduced in the population it is persistent and therefore effective control mechanisms are required.