Increasing survival time decreases the cost-effectiveness of using "test & treat'' to eliminate HIV epidemics.
Math Biosci Eng
; 10(5-6): 1673-86, 2013.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24245641
ABSTRACT
Treating HIV-infected individuals reduces their viral load, consequently increasing their survival time and decreasing their infectivity. It has been proposed that universal testing and treatment (i.e., universal "test & treat'') could lead to HIV elimination and would be extremely cost-effective. It is now being debated whether to use a universal "test & treat'' approach in the "real-world'' as a prevention strategy to control HIV epidemics. However current modeling predictions of the impact, and cost-effectiveness, of universal `"est & treat'' strategies are based on an unrealistically short survival time for treated individuals. Here we use mathematical modeling and a longer, more realistic, survival time. We model the potential impact of a universal "test & treat'' strategy in South Africa. Our results show that increasing the length of the survival time on treatment, although beneficial to individuals, reduces the probability of eliminating HIV and decreases the cost-effectiveness of using universal "test & treat'' strategies. Therefore our results show that individual-level benefits and public health benefits will conflict when using "test &treat'' strategies to reduce HIV transmission.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Infecciones por VIH
Tipo de estudio:
Etiology_studies
/
Health_economic_evaluation
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
País/Región como asunto:
Africa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Math Biosci Eng
Año:
2013
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos