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In 2014, city leaders from around the world endorsed the Paris Declaration on Fast‐Track Cities, pledging to achieve the 2020 and 2030 HIV targets championed by UNAIDS. The City of Johannesburg – one of South Africa's metropolitan municipalities and also a health district – has over 600,000 people living with HIV (PLHIV), more than any other city worldwide. We estimate what it would take in terms of programmatic targets and costs for the City of Johannesburg to meet the Fast‐Track targets, and demonstrate the impact that this would have.

International investment in the response to HIV and AIDS has plateaued and its future level is uncertain. With many countries committed to ending the epidemic, it is essential to allocate available resources efficiently over different response periods to maximize impact. The objective of this study is to propose a technique to determine the optimal allocation of funds over time across a set of HIV programs to achieve desirable health outcomes. We developed a technique to determine the optimal time‐varying allocation of funds (1) when the future annual HIV budget is pre‐defined and (2) when the total budget over a period is pre‐defined, but the year‐on‐year budget is to be optimally determined. We use this methodology with Optima, an HIV transmission model that uses non‐linear relationships between program spending and associated programmatic outcomes to quantify the expected epidemiological impact of spending. We apply these methods to data collected from Zambia to determine the optimal distribution of resources to fund the right programs, for the right people, at the right time.

An accurate measurement of HIV incidence is a key for policy makers and HIV program managers directing national HIV response. However, there is no perfect method to measure or estimate the rate at which new HIV infections occur in a population. This review compiles and triangulates longitudinal HIV incidence and prevalence data from published studies and trials, national reports and surveys, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates from the Spectrum model, focusing on 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with generalized HIV epidemics. Three main points can be taken from this analysis of HIV incidence trends. First, modeled HIV incidence and nationally reported HIV prevalence levels in young females suggest that national HIV incidence has declined since 2000 in all except three countries analyzed (stable estimated HIV trends in Burkina Faso, Burundi, and Uganda), but trial and survey data suggest that in some demographics, HIV incidence remains critically high. Second, all modeled national HIV incidence curves and most empirically observed trends commenced a downward trajectory prior to the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy programs around 2004, suggesting the contribution of other factors, such as HIV prevention programs and natural epidemic dynamics, to this decline. Third, modeled HIV incidence estimates, including the incidence peaks in the past, exhibit much variation between Spectrum model versions and when new data are added, emphasizing the uncertainty of model outputs and the need to use incidence estimates with caution.