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© Íde Cremin

    

The Consortium aims to be agile and responsive to new developments and help to fill the gaps that currently exist to support modelling research.

While many of the topics considered by the consortium are novel and prompted by new innovations in discovery, funded work also intentionally promotes more groups looking at the same questions using different approaches. We also provide a forum for diverse research groups to be exposed to new expertise in adjacent disciplines and technological advances in software engineering and model design.

  • Community Trials

    Trials planned to start in the coming months will test key hypothesis about the impact of ART on prevention and combination HIV prevention. Mathematical modelling has played an important role in raising the hypotheses which these trials seek to test, and will be key to the design of trials and the interpretation of results. As the trials are taking place in a variety of settings, there will also be a need to understand how different results may be reconciled. The trials also provide an opportunity to draw a comparison between actual observed impact and model projections.

  • Diagnostics

    The way in which the decision to initiate HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART) is taken, and the monitoring they receive whilst on treatment, are important determinants of the success of treatment in keeping patients alive. Recently, there have been major development in the diagnostics that could be used in programmes, and exciting new possibilities to develop new diagnostics that could be available in future years. But which ones should be prioritised and do their benefits justify the costs? These questions will be the focus of a Modelling Consortium project, planned for late 2012.

  • In-Depth Model Comparison

    There were many questions raised in the comprehensive model comparison undertaken in work package 3 when models did not produce similar outcomes even when simulated interventions were standardized. There are several hypotheses for these remaining differences and identifying the true root causes will be of substantial theoretical interest (in terms of identifying the influence of unsupported priors) as well as practical interest (so that results of simpler models can be confidently extrapolated). Building on sustained enthusiasm for the project, the consortium has initiated a second concerted phase of model comparison which will be designed to tackle these issues.

  • Incidence Estimation

    Incidence estimation, in particular of HIV, continues to attract high interest and present enormous challenges. The theoretical basis for estimating incidence from cross sectional biomarker surveys has only recently been formalised. There appears to be the beginning of consensus on core concepts, an emerging sense of the possibilities and limitation, and no obvious scope for deep improvements in the demographic/epidemiological regime of HIV epidemiology. The immediate gap in current theory and practise is in the area of characterising the tests for recent infection from the usually considerably suboptimal data obtained in studies following seroconverters.

  • Modelling for the WHO 2013 Guidelines for Use of Antiretrovirals

    Since November 2011, the Consortium has been working closely with the WHO as it prepares for the 2013 revision of guidelines on Anti-retrovirals. It has become clear that modelling analysis would be useful in the guidelines and several specific modelling questions have been articulated by the WHO and the consortium secretariat.

  • Sources of HIV Infection

    To help optimize the allocation of resources in HIV prevention programmes, the UNAIDS/World Bank initiative ‘Know Your Epidemic – Know Your Response’ has been designed to facilitate programme managers to examine the sources of HIV infections in a country, which can then be used to guide prevention programme and data collection priorities.

  • The Potential for the Spread of Drug Resistance Due to PrEP

    A major concern in the use of ARV-drug in HIV-uninfected individuals to prevent HIV infection (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, PrEP) is the risk of generation of drug-resistance virus that compromises the efficacy of current first line treatment regimens.

  • The Potential Impact of Treatment on HIV Incidence

    Recent epidemiological data have shown that HIV-infected individuals who take anti-retroviral therapy (ART) are substantially less likely to transmit HIV to their sexual partners. In light of this, many have endorsed expanding access to ART as a central component of HIV prevention strategies.