CDC ponders HIV future scenarios
HIV in U.S. could have different futures
The U.S. HIV epidemic has claimed more than 575,000 lives, and 56,300 Americans were newly infected with HIV in 2006. HIV prevention efforts to date have helped hundreds of thousands of people avoid infection, but have not reached enough of those currently at risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV with highly effective interventions to turn the course of the epidemic.
To help set U.S. HIV prevention goals, determine prevention program needs, and project future healthcare costs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Johns Hopkins University conducted an analysis that projects what the HIV epidemic in the United States might look like in 10 years under different scenarios.1
The CDC/Johns Hopkins study reveals that maintaining status quo HIV prevention efforts could put the nation on a dangerous trajectory, resulting in substantial increases in HIV and related costs to the U.S. healthcare system. The most pessimistic base-case scenario projected the impact of a static HIV transmission rate (at the current CDC estimate of 5.0 new HIV infections transmitted annually per 100 persons living with HIV). It found that both HIV prevalence and incidence would increase by 38% (from 1.107 million to 1.530 million people living with HIV, and from 55,400 to 76,600 annual new HIV infections). Recent cuts to state and local HIV prevention budgets may make it difficult to make further progress in reducing HIV transmission.
However, the study found that a rapid expansion of HIV prevention efforts could most effectively reduce the number of new HIV infections in the United States, and save the U.S. healthcare system up to 25 times the amount that would need to be invested in prevention. The study found that intensifying national HIV prevention efforts over a five-year timeframe and maintaining them for the subsequent five years could reduce annual HIV incidence by 46% (from 55,400 to 30,200 new infections) saving as many as an additional 306,000 people from becoming infected over the next 10 years compared to maintaining current prevention efforts.
Reference
- Hall HI, Green TA, Wolitski RJ, et al. Estimated future HIV prevalence, incidence, and potential infections averted in the United States: a multiple scenario analysis. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2010 July 30; volume published ahead of print.
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