Abstract
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for those infected with HIV can prevent onward transmission of infection, but biological efficacy alone is not enough to guide policy decisions about the role of ART in reducing HIV incidence. Epidemiology, economics, demography, statistics, biology, and mathematical modelling will be central in framing key decisions in the optimal use of ART. PLoS Medicine, with the HIV Modelling Consortium, has commissioned a set of articles that examine different aspects of HIV treatment as prevention with a forward-looking research agenda. Interlocking themes across these articles are discussed in this introduction. We hope that this article, and others in the collection, will provide a foundation upon which greater collaborations between disciplines will be formed, and will afford deeper insights into the key factors involved, to help strengthen the support for evidence-based decision-making in HIV prevention.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e1001259 |
Journal | PLoS Medicine |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jul 2012 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:GG is currently employed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In the past 5 yeas GG has received grants from the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council the Gates Foundation and UNAIDS. In the past 5 years GG has been a consultant for GSK and Merck working on HPV vaccination and for Viropharma to work on stem cell transplantation. CM is employed by a commercial company that provide consulting services in health economics to pharmaceutical companies and donor organizations. Much of our work is focussed on HIV/AIDS and we have been involved in projects that evaluated the health economic impact of ARV treatment for prevention. The company was, however, not compensated for being part of the HIV modeling group that wrote this article. WM receives US NIH grant support. JS is a member of the PLoS Medicine Editorial Board. BZ is PI of the ALPHA network of HIV community-based cohort studies that may supply data to the modelling consortium. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the agencies represented, including US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PEPFAR, UNAIDS, WHO, or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine