Predicting the HIV/AIDS epidemic and measuring the effect of AIDS Conquering Project in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 17; no. 7; p. e0270525
• Main Authors: Ma, Shizhao, Chen, Yi, Lai, Xiulan, Lan, Guanghua, Ruan, Yuhua, Shen, Zhiyong, Zhu, Qiuying, Tang, Shuai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 01.07.2022; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; AIDS; AIDS (Disease); Antiretroviral agents; Antiretroviral drugs; Biology and Life Sciences; Computer applications; Disease control; Disease prevention; Education; Epidemics; Evaluation; HIV; Human immunodeficiency virus; Infections; Infectious diseases; Information systems; Least squares method; Markov chains; Mathematical models; Medical diagnosis; Medical tests; Medicine and Health Sciences; Parameter estimation; Population; Prevention; Public health; Reproduction; Sexually transmitted diseases; Surveillance; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270525

To control the HIV/AIDS epidemics in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China, Guangxi government launched the 5-year Guangxi AIDS Conquering Project (GACP, Phase I: 2010-2014, Phase II: 2015-2020). In the project, three measures are implemented, such as great improvements of the coverage of HIV/AIDS education, promotion of HIV voluntary counseling and testing, and enhancement of antiretroviral treatment. In this paper, we explore the effects of the three measures of GACP by construction of a Susceptible-Infected-Diagnosed-Treated population compartments model and via evaluation of the basic reproduction number derived from the model. A computational framework is developed for estimating the model parameters based on the HIV surveillance data, with application of the Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo method and Nonlinear Least Squares method. By estimating the new infections and evaluating the basic reproduction number, we find that the implementation of the three measures of GACP has a significant effect on controlling the rise of HIV/AIDS cases and the epidemic trend. Compared with HIV voluntary counseling and testing, strengthening HIV/AIDS education and expanding the coverage of antiretroviral treatment show a greater impact on HIV/AIDS epidemic control, which provides a reference project for other provinces with a similar epidemic situation in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. At the same time, our research fills the current research gap for the evaluation of large-scale AIDS prevention and control projects in developing areas.