A Markov Chain Monte Carlo Approach to Estimate AIDS after HIV Infection

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

The spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and the resulting acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a major health concern in many parts of the world, and mathematical models are commonly applied to understand the spread of the HIV epidemic. To understand the spread of HIV and AIDS cases and their parameters in a given population, it is necessary to develop a theoretical framework that takes into account realistic factors. The current study used this framework to assess the interaction between individuals who developed AIDS after HIV infection and individuals who did not develop AIDS after HIV infection (pre-AIDS). We first investigated how probabilistic parameters affect the model in terms of the HIV and AIDS population over a period of time. We observed that there is a critical threshold parameter, R-0, which determines the behavior of the model. If R-0 1, the disease-free equilibrium is unstable. We also show how a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach could be used as a supplement to forecast the numbers of reported HIV and AIDS cases. An approach using a Monte Carlo analysis is illustrated to understand the impact of model-based predictions in light of uncertain parameters on the spread of HIV. Finally, to examine this framework and demonstrate how it works, a case study was performed of reported HIV and AIDS cases from an annual data set in Malaysia, and then we compared how these approaches complement each other. We conclude that HIV disease in Malaysia shows epidemic behavior, especially in the context of understanding and predicting emerging cases of HIV and AIDS.

Original languageEnglish
Article number0131950
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume10
Issue number7
Number of pages14
ISSN1932-6203
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Jul 2015

    Research areas

  • MODEL, TRANSMISSION, EPIDEMIC, DISEASE, SPREAD

ID: 334331113