In the worldwide fight against the AIDS epidemic, the ability to predict the number and social impact of future cases plays a vital role. The choice of control strategies, public health decisions, and the evaluation of possible interventions depend on having such information that is accurate and reliable. This book is devoted to the statistical analysis of basic data on the spread of AIDS and the mathematical modelling of the transmission and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes the disease. Such techniques take into account medical, psychosocial, behavioral and economic factors, and can help to integrate this information into an efficient methodology for the estimation of future needs and how to meet them. In addition to AIDS specialists, the studies here will be valuable to all those involved in public health, epidemiology and the control of communicable diseases.

The 18 research articles of this volume discuss the major themes that have emerged from mathematical and statistical research in the epidemiology of HIV. The opening paper reviews important recent contributions. Five sections follow: Statistical Methodology and Forecasting, Infectivity and the HIV, Heterogeneity and HIV Transmission Dynamics, Social Dynamics and AIDS, and The Immune System and The HIV. In each, leading experts in AIDS epidemiology present the recent results. Some address the role of variable infectivity, heterogeneous mixing, and long periods of infectiousness in the dynamics of HIV; others concentrate on parameter estimation and short-term forecasting. The last section looks at the interaction between the HIV and the immune system.

The book discusses different therapeutic approaches based on different mathematical models to control the HIV/AIDS disease transmission. It uses clinical data, collected from different cited sources, to formulate the deterministic as well as stochastic mathematical models of HIV/AIDS. It provides complementary approaches, from deterministic and stochastic points of view, to optimal control strategy with perfect drug adherence and also tries to seek viewpoints of the same issue from different angles with various mathematical models to computer simulations. The book presents essential methods and techniques for students who are interested in designing epidemiological models on HIV/AIDS. It also guides research scientists, working in the periphery of mathematical modeling, and helps them to explore a hypothetical method by examining its consequences in the form of a mathematical modelling and making some scientific predictions. The model equations, mathematical analysis and several numerical simulations that are presented in the book would serve to reveal the consequences of the logical structure of the disease transmission, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. One of the chapters introduces the optimal control approach towards the mathematical models, describing the optimal drug dosage process that is discussed with the basic deterministic models dealing with stability analysis. Another one chapter deals with the mathematical analysis for the perfect drug adherence for different drug dynamics during the treatment management. The last chapter of the book consists the stochastic approach to the disease dynamics on HIV/AIDS. This method helps to move the disease HIV/AIDS to extinction as the time to increase. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers, who are studying and working in the field of bio-mathematical modelling on infectious diseases, applied mathematics, health informatics, applied statistics and qualitative public health, etc. Social workers, who are working in the field of HIV, will also find the book useful for complements.

This book presents models describing HIV transmission rates at population level, discussing the main statistical methods and analytical interventions. It also assesses the practical applicability of the various modelling techniques, offering readers insights into what methods are available and, more importantly, when they should be used to address HIV transmission at global level. The book includes realistic simulation models fitted to clarify the rate of HIV mother-to-child transmission (HIV MTCT), and substantiates the conclusions that can be drawn as well as the appropriate time for making global-level clinical decisions concerning people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIVs). Intended for students, academics and researchers, the book offers more than just an introduction to the topic – it also features in-depth, yet easy-to-understand, descriptions of a new mathematical/statistical HIV mother-to-child transmission model, making it a useful resource for clinicians, public health workers and policymakers involved in implementing HIV-prevention programmes at national /global level.