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Objective: To end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, despite the increasing poverty and inequalities, policies should be designed to deal with population heterogeneity and environmental changes. Bottom-up designs, such as the Agent-Based Model (ABM), can model these features, dealing with such complexity. HIV/AIDS has a complex dynamic of structural factors, risk behaviors, biomedical characteristics and interventions. All embedded in unequal, stigmatized and heterogeneous social structure. To understand how ABMs can model this complexity, we performed a scoping review of HIV applications, highlighting their potentialities. Methods: We searched on PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus repositories following the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. Our inclusion criteria were HIV/AIDS studies with an ABM application. We identified the main articles using a local co-citation analysis and categorized the overall literature aims, (sub)populations, regions, and if the papers declared the use of ODD protocol and limitations. Results: We found 154 articles. We identified eleven main papers, and discussed them using the overall category results. Most studies model Transmission Dynamics (37/154), about Men who have sex with Men (MSM) (41/154), or individuals living in the US or South Africa (84/154). Recent studies applied ABM to model PrEP interventions (17/154) and Racial Disparities (12/154). Only six papers declared the use of ODD Protocol (6/154), and 34/154 didn't mention the study limitations. Conclusions: While ABM is among the most sophisticated techniques available to model HIV/AIDS complexity. Their applications are still restricted to some realities. However, researchers are challenged to think about social structure due model characteristics, the inclusion of these features is still restricted to case-specific. Data and computational power availability can enhance this feature providing insightful results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-resolution remote sensing images, there are areas with weak textures such as large building roofs, which occupy a large number of pixels in the image. These areas pose a challenge for traditional semantic segmentation networks to obtain ideal results. Common strategies like downsampling, patch cropping, and cascade models often sacrifice fine details or global context, resulting in limited accuracy. To address these issues, a novel semantic segmentation framework has been designed specifically for large-format high-resolution remote sensing images by aggregating global and local features in this paper. The framework consists of two branches: one branch deals with low-resolution downsampled images to capture global features, while the other branch focuses on cropped patches to extract high-resolution local details. Also, this paper introduces a feature aggregation module based on the Transformer structure, which effectively aggregates global and local information. Additionally, to save GPU memory usage, a novel three-step training method has been developed. Extensive experiments on two public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, with an IoU of 90.83% on the AIDS dataset and 90.30% on the WBDS dataset, surpassing state-of-the-art methods such as DANet, DeepLab v3+, U-Net, ViT, TransUNet, CMTFNet, and UANet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, humanity has suffered and endured deadly pandemics of varying mortality rates. Irrefutably, research shows that the outbreak of pandemics is flooded by mythical and fallacious information among the public, hence stifling the prevention, treatment, and management of diseases. This paper focused on comparing selected aspects of the two pandemics, that is, HIV/AIDS and Coronavirus. This comparative analysis is important for drawing informative lessons for effective response and management of pandemics in the future. Through a literature review analysis, the paper established that both pandemics have more similarities than distinctions. The etiology and epidemiology of the diseases assume a similar cascading trajectory; the public health information about the diseases is characterized by myths, conspiracy theories, illusions, and delusions from the public. The myths associated with pandemics prevail around causation, disease transmission, and cure. The pandemics present economic paradoxes, though arguably the negatives outdo the positives. There is a need for the governments and international health custodians to be richly prepared for the pandemics in the future. This implies having special budgetary allocations for possible pandemic outbreaks, investing in vaccine development and disease surveillance, and training and skilling personnel in all social-health-related sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Implementation science (IS) offers methods to systematically achieve the Ending the HIV Epidemic goals in the United States, as well as the global UNAIDS targets. Federal funders such as the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) have invested in implementation research to achieve these goals, including supporting the AIDS Research Centres (ARCs), which focus on high‐impact science in HIV and mental health (MH). To facilitate capacity building for the HIV/MH research workforce in IS, "grey areas," or areas of IS that are confusing, particularly for new investigators, should be addressed in the context of HIV/MH research. Discussion: A group of IS experts affiliated with NIMH‐funded ARCs convened to identify common and challenging grey areas. The group generated a preliminary list of 19 grey areas in HIV/MH‐related IS. From the list, the authors developed a survey which was distributed to all ARCs to prioritize grey areas to address in this paper. ARC members across the United States (N = 60) identified priority grey areas requiring clarification. This commentary discusses topics with 40% or more endorsement. The top grey areas that ARC members identified were: (1) Differentiating implementation strategies from interventions; (2) Determining when an intervention has sufficient evidence for adaptation; (3) Integrating recipient perspectives into HIV/MH implementation research; (4) Evaluating whether an implementation strategy is evidence‐based; (5) Identifying rigorous approaches for evaluating the impact of implementation strategies in the absence of a control group or randomization; and (6) Addressing innovation in HIV/MH IS grants. The commentary addresses each grey area by drawing from the existing literature (when available), providing expert guidance on addressing each in the context of HIV/MH research, and providing domestic and global HIV and HIV/MH case examples that address these grey areas. Conclusions: HIV/MH IS is key to achieving domestic and international goals for ending HIV transmission and mitigating its impact. Guidance offered in this paper can help to overcome challenges to rigorous and high‐impact HIV/MH implementation research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco smoking undermines the effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and potentially associates with other health problems. This study aimed to analyze the growth and content of research on smoking among PLWHA on Web of Science Database. Co-occurrence analysis and Jaccard's' similarity index calculation were performed to identify and visualize networks of countries collaboration, keywords co-occurrence, and research topics. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to the abstracts' contents to uncover research domains and landscapes. The number of publications increased by 14.55% annually in the period of 1991-2017, with 74% of total papers published within 2007-2017. A wide range of topics have been covered, notably co-morbidities, interventions on smoking abstinence and cessation, and the enforcing relationship of smoking cessation with antiretroviral treatment adherence. A shortage of studies on smoking among PLWHA in low-and middle-income countries, limited collaborations between countries outside of close geographical proximity and a lack of discussion on local contexts and psychosocial factors were found. Smoking among PLWHA has been being studied more extensively in recent years, enhancing our knowledge and awareness of the significant and specific effects smoking have on PLWHA, which, in turn, assisting the proposals and implementations of suitable solutions. However, more efforts should be made to examine and understand contextualized aspects, including culture and beliefs specific to each nation or smaller sub-population within a country, especially those currently under-researched, as well as psycho-behavioral factors to implement more effective interventions to reduce smoking among PLWHA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitigating the impacts of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and substance use requires comprehensive and systematic thinking in designing interventions and developing policies. This study describes the growth of research publications from 1991 to 2021 in the Web of Science database and points out current research landscapes in the fields of HIV/AIDS and substance use. Latent Dirichlet Allocation was used for classifying 21 359 papers into corresponding topics. The most common topics were HIV transmission, HIV infection, quality of life and mental health of substance users, and the biomedical effect of substance use. Emerging research landscapes include vulnerabilities of people who inject drugs to HIV transmission and related health problems. This study found a lack of research on health services, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral in combination with clinical evaluation and treatment services. Future investment and implementation of HIV/AIDS and substance use programs should focus on research of health services and clinical evaluation, especially context-specific interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many children and adolescents living with HIV have ended up as orphans. Due to HIV taking away their parents leaves them deprived of their most important social network and support, which predisposes them to poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Various studies have shown poor adherence to ART among orphaned children and adolescents. This systematic review and meta-analysis, therefore, aims to determine the level of ART adherence among orphaned children and adolescents living with HIV/AIDS. Methods: This PROSPERO registered review (CRD42022352867) included studies from PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, Africa Journal Online, and selected HIV/AIDS journals from data inception to June 01, 2022. We included articles published in all languages that report the prevalence of adherence to ART among children and adolescent orphans (single parent orphans and/or double orphans) living with HIV/AIDS. We excluded qualitative studies, case studies, opinion papers, and letters to editors. We used the random-effect model to calculate the pooled prevalence of ART adherence based on the highest prevalence provided by the various methods in a particular study. We used the Joanna Briggs Institute Appraisal tool for the prevalence study to evaluate for risk of bias in the included studies. The Egger's test was used to assess small study effects. Results: Out of 1087 publications identified from the various databases, six met the selection criteria. The included six studies had a total 2013 orphans living with HIV/AIDS. The pooled prevalence of ART adherence was 78∙0% (95% Confidence Interval: 67.4–87.7; I2 = 82.92%, p<0∙001) and ranged between 7∙6% and >95%, using one of the following methods: pill count, caregiver's self-report, clinical attendance, and nevirapine plasma levels (above three μg/mL). The factors associated with adherence were pill burden, caregiver involvement, stunting, and caregiver relationship. Limitation: There was a high level of heterogeneity in the finding. Conclusion: Approximately four fifth of orphan children and adolescents living with HIV/AIDS adhere to ART. Strategies to improve adherence among this group should be prioritized, especially among the double orphaned children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitigating the impacts of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and substance use requires comprehensive and systematic thinking in designing interventions and developing policies. This study describes the growth of research publications from 1991 to 2021 in the Web of Science database and points out current research landscapes in the fields of HIV/AIDS and substance use. Latent Dirichlet Allocation was used for classifying 21 359 papers into corresponding topics. The most common topics were HIV transmission, HIV infection, quality of life and mental health of substance users, and the biomedical effect of substance use. Emerging research landscapes include vulnerabilities of people who inject drugs to HIV transmission and related health problems. This study found a lack of research on health services, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral in combination with clinical evaluation and treatment services. Future investment and implementation of HIV/AIDS and substance use programs should focus on research of health services and clinical evaluation, especially context-specific interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The purpose of the study was to determine the volume and extent of general human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) research in Turkey as well as the coverage of national HIV/AIDS research agenda. Material and methods: Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection advanced search engine was applied to conduct bibliometric search. "HIV or AIDS or HIV/AIDS or Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV-1 or HIV-2 or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome" and "Turkey" were used as search key words. In addition, the study included "Language = English", "Document area = medicine" and "Document type = Article". We also selected science citation index expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and social sciences citation index (SSCI) as Web of Science indexes. The data in WoS improved all information on publications, including fields of study, institutions, group authors, funding agencies, journals, citations, and co-authorship. Results: In total, 313 articles were found. The first document was published in 1996, and 310 (99%) papers were published in the last 20 years. The documents were mostly (62.300%) published in science citation index expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) indexed journals. Most of the publications were from medicine general internal (33.866%) area. The top-ranked affiliations from Turkey in HIV/AIDS research were Istanbul University (19.169%), Ege University (10.863%), University of Health Sciences (9.265%), and Hacettepe University (8.626%). ACTHIV-IST (ACTion against HIV in Istanbul) study group (n = 3, 0.958) was Turkey's most productive HIV/AIDS research group. 87.220% of the studies were not funded. Conclusions: According to the findings, Turkey has limited HIV/AIDS research output. Furthermore, the majority of investigations were conducted by only a few centers. Because the study covered the entire country, and there are more centers that follow HIV/AIDS patients, these centers should also take part in the research. As a result, the current study emphasizes the importance of increasing targeted financing for HIV/AIDS research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Antiretroviral therapy has led to AIDS being a chronic disease. Nevertheless, the presence of constantly emerging drug resistance mutations poses a challenge to clinical treatment. A systematic analysis to summarize the advancements and uncharted territory of drug resistance mutations is urgently needed and may provide new clues for solving this problem. Methods: We gathered 3,694 publications on drug resistance mutations from the Web of Science Core Collection with CiteSpace software and performed an analysis to visualize the results and predict future new directions and emerging trends. Betweenness centrality, count, and burst value were taken as standards. Results: The number of papers on HIV medication resistance mutations during the last 10 years shows a wave-like trend. In terms of nation, organization, and author, the United States (1449), University of London (193), and Mark A. Wainberg (66) are the most significant contributors. The most frequently cited article is "Drug resistance mutations for surveillance of transmitted HIV-1 drug-resistance: 2009 update." Hot topics in this field include "next-generation sequencing," "tenofovir alafenamide," "children," "regimens," "accumulation," "dolutegravir," "rilpivirine," "sex," "pretreatment drug resistance," and "open label." Research on drug resistance in teenagers, novel mutation detection techniques, and drug development is ongoing, and numerous publications have indicated the presence of mutations related to current medications. Therefore, testing must be performed regularly for patients who have used medications for a long period. Additionally, by choosing medications with a longer half-life, patients can take fewer doses of their prescription, increasing patient compliance. Conclusion: This study involved a bibliometric visualization analysis of the literature on drug resistance mutations, providing insight into the field's evolution and emerging patterns and offering academics a resource to better understand HIV drug resistance mutations and contribute to the field's advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is a chronic and sometimes fatal illness. HIV reduces an individual's capability against infection and illness by demolishing his or her immunity. This paper presents a new model that governs the dynamical behavior of HIV/AIDS by integrating new compartments, i.e., the treatment class T. The steady-state solutions of the model are investigated, and accordingly, the threshold quantity R 0 is calculated, which describes the global dynamics of the proposed model. It is proved that for R 0 less than one, the infection-free state of the model is globally asymptotically stable. However, as the threshold number increases by one, the endemic equilibrium becomes globally asymptotically stable, and in such case, the disease-free state is unstable. At the end of the paper, the analytic conclusions obtained from the analysis of the ordinary differential equation (ODE) model are supported through numerical simulations. The paper also addresses a comprehensive analysis of a fractional-order HIV model utilizing the Caputo fractional differential operator. The model's qualitative analysis is investigated, and computational modeling is used to examine the system's long-term behavior. The existence/uniqueness of the solution to the model is determined by applying some results from the fixed points of the theory. The stability results for the system are established by incorporating the Ulam–Hyers method. For numerical treatment and simulations, we apply Newton's polynomial and the Toufik–Atangana numerical method. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the fractional-order approach in capturing the dynamics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and provide valuable insights for designing effective control strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that suppresses the immune system by reducing the CD4+ T lymphocytes level. It has become a global challenge with fast prevalence ratio. Like other developing countries, Pakistan is also struggling for overcoming this viral disease since very first reported case in 1987. Aim: To update the society on the alarming rise in HIV cases in Pakistan: challenges and future recommendations at hand. Materials and Methods: The review paper utilized different search engines such pubmed central, scopus, web of science, google scholar etc. to conduct this review paper. Results: Lack of awareness, low literacy rate, practice of unhygienic equipment in healthcare departments, unstable economy, and unsafe sexual practices are the major factors behind the increasing rate of AIDS in Pakistan. Conclusion: By regulating healthcare practices and policies, promoting psychological counseling to HIV positive patients, educating the society and minimizing commercial sex practices, Pakistan can overcome this viral disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The residual life of a patient with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is of major interest to patients and their physicians. While existing analyses of HIV patient survival focus mostly on data collected at baseline, residual life analysis allows for dynamic analysis based on additional data collected over a period of time. As survival times typically exhibit a right-skewed distribution, the median provides a more useful summary of the underlying distribution than the mean. In this paper, we propose an efficient inference procedure that fits a semiparametric quantile regression model assessing the effect of longitudinal biomarkers on the residual life of HIV patients until the development of dyslipidemia, a disease becoming more prevalent among those with HIV. Methods: For estimation of model parameters, we propose an induced smoothing method that smooths nonsmooth estimating functions based on check functions. For variance estimation, we propose an efficient resampling-based estimator. The proposed estimators are theoretically justified. Simulation studies are used to evaluate their finite sample performances, including their prediction accuracy. We analyze the Korea HIV/AIDS cohort study data to examine the effects of CD4 (cluster of differentiation 4) cell count on the residual life of HIV patients to the onset of dyslipidemia. Results: The proposed estimator is shown to be consistent and normally distributed asymptotically. Under various simulation settings, our estimates are approximately unbiased. Their variances estimates are close to the empirical variances and their computational efficiency is superior to that of the nonsmooth counterparts. Two measures of prediction performance indicate that our method adequately reflects the dynamic character of longitudinal biomarkers and residual life. The analysis of the Korea HIV/AIDS cohort study data shows that CD4 cell count is positively associated with residual life to the onset of dyslipidemia but the effect is not statistically significant. Conclusions: Our method enables direct prediction of residual lifetimes with a dynamic feature that accommodates data accumulated at different times. Our estimator significantly improves computational efficiency in variance estimation compared to the existing nonsmooth estimator. Analysis of the HIV/AIDS cohort study data reveals dynamic effects of CD4 cell count on the residual life to the onset of dyslipidemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood recipients, particularly frequent receivers, are at high-risk of receiving human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and no current serologic tests eliminate this transmission risk. The current paper aimed to provide an updated comprehensive report on the prevalence of HIV infection among blood donors in different parts of the world. HIV infection prevalence in blood donors was determined based on electronically published data through a systematic review of literature in international databases until February 2020. Studies published in Farsi and English reporting the prevalence of HIV were included. Meta-analysis was performed, and final results were classified according to World Health Organization (WHO) divisions of the world. Out of 1,859 articles, 241 met the inclusion criteria. The prevalence of HIV was higher in first-time donors, males, and replacement therapy receivers. The pooled prevalence was 502.74 in 100,000. AFRO with 2,384.99 and Europe with 19.04 in 100,000 had the highest and the lowest rates, respectively. Gabon represented the highest rate of 20,623, while the USA showed the lowest rate, i.e., 4.33, among the countries. Updated reports on the prevalence of HIV among blood donors help policy-makers and care providers realize the possible need for improving the screening, diagnostics, and treatment protocols. Although the prevalence has decreased in many parts of the world, improving the current protocols is still necessary to minimize the risks in transfusion systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Susan Sontag is an American writer and a political activist. She became famous with the publication of her essay "Notes on 'Camp'" in 1964. She examines certain illnesses as significant modern American cultural signs in her two nonfictional works Illness as Metaphor (1978) and AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989). In these works, tuberculosis is presented as a romantic illness; and cancer is described as a war. AIDS is presented as a cultural sign to suggest the moral depravity of people. After looking at how various illnesses in literature have been interpreted through metaphors, Sontag then rejects the use of these metaphors to see what actually the metaphorising of each illness means. The present paper examines the use of metaphors to represent illness with reference to Sontag's selected works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV/AIDS remains one of the most significant global health challenges, affecting millions of people worldwide. Since the inception of the disease, various global response strategies have been devised and implemented, aiming to mitigate its impact and ultimately eradicate it. While these strategies have yielded remarkable progress, there are still key barriers impeding the global fight against the disease. This paper, thus, delves into the key global response strategies employed in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic since its inception, examines the impediments to their successful implementation, and outlines the trajectory towards a world without AIDS. To continue the momentum in the fight against HIV/AIDS, it is imperative to adopt a multifaceted approach that addresses the existing barriers. One pivotal aspect of this approach involves intensifying efforts to improve the uptake of HIV testing. Encouraging individuals to get tested is a critical step, as it not only aids in identifying more cases of HIV infection but also facilitates the linkage of those affected to appropriate care and support services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare systems worldwide has been compromising the progress made in the fight against HIV. This paper aims to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted HIV comprehensive care service delivery globally as well as to consolidate the evidence and recommendations that may be useful in averting future crisis. Methods: This review adheres to PRISMA guidelines. PubMed, DOAJ, Science Direct and other sources like Google Scholar and citations from included studies were searched methodically to locate studies evaluating the effects of COVID on services for HIV care. The NIH and JBI quality assessment tools were used for the quality assessment of individual studies. Results: In the present review 31 eligible studies were included and the impact on HIV care cascade were summarised under six themes: Lab services, Treatment and allied services, Counselling services, Outreach services, Psycho-social impact and Implementation of sustainable strategies. The studies also presented many innovative alternatives which were lucidly highlighted in the present article. Conclusion: Current evidence depicts multiple factors are responsible for the interruption of HIV care service delivery during the pandemic, especially in low resources settings. The prospective, alternative solutions that have been used to circumvent the threat have also been addressed in this review, in addition to the negative aspects that have been observed. Transition with new innovative, sustainable care paradigms may prove to be the building blocks in removing HIV-AIDS as a public health threat. Registration: Open Science Framework (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/74GHM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV/AIDS-COVID-19 co-infection is a major public health concern especially in developing countries of the world. This paper presents HIV/AIDS-COVID-19 co-infection to investigate the impact of interventions on its transmission using ordinary differential equation. In the analysis of the model, the solutions are shown to be non-negative and bounded, using next-generation matrix approach the basic reproduction numbers are computed, sufficient conditions for stabilities of equilibrium points are established. The sensitivity analysis showed that transmission rates are the most sensitive parameters that have direct impact on the basic reproduction numbers and protection and treatment rates are more sensitive and have indirect impact to the basic reproduction numbers. Numerical simulations shown that some parameter effects on the transmission of single infections as well as co-infection, and applying the protection rates and treatment rates have effective roles to minimize and also to eradicate the HIV/AIDS-COVID-19 co-infection spreading in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how experiences with a previous pandemic, particularly HIV/AIDS, may have informed approaches to COVID-19, with a focus on sexual orientation. Method: The sample was drawn from an online survey of Canadians 55+ conducted in 2020, comprising 1143 persons (mean age = 67; 88 gay or bisexual (GB) men, 65 lesbian or bisexual (LB) women, 818 heterosexual women, and 172 heterosexual men). Respondents reported if they, or someone close to them, "had been affected by" one or more pandemics and whether COVID-19 led them to "think more about their prior epidemic/pandemic experiences" and/or feel they "couldn't handle it again". Correlated items reflecting feeling "they have been here before"; "prepared for what is happening"; and "like they needed to act or do something" formed a scale named "agentic familiarity". Results: About half of respondents reported thinking about their previous pandemic experience; about 5% reporting feeling like "they couldn't handle it again" with no gender or sexual orientation differences. Higher agentic familiarity scores were found for GB men and for those with experience with HIV/AIDS vs. other pandemics. Discussion: These outcomes speak to resilience and growth experienced by LGBT (and especially GB) persons through shared stigma and trauma—with implications for current pandemic experiences and future actions, like advance care planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Advancement in biomedical science has led to the discovery of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) as new strategies for prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This current study was a quantitative analysis that sought to evaluate the awareness and willingness to use PrEP and PEP by sexually active adults in Ghana. Material and methods: The study respondents consisted of 365 sexually active adults in Ghana. A questionnaire was designed and administered to participants online using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) approach. A Χ² test and logistic regression were employed for the analysis. Results: The study revealed a generally low awareness of PrEP and PEP. Only 25.2% of the respondents were aware of PrEP, while 20.3% were aware of PEP. Despite the low awareness rate, majority of respondents (69.3%) were willing to use PrEP and PEP for prevention of HIV. On the other hand, 30.7% of the respondents indicated their unwillingness to use PrEP and PEP citing the fear of undesirable side effects of the medications as the main reason for their decision. Conclusions: This paper calls on policy-makers to intensify advocacy for the usefulness of PrEP and PEP. The Ghana Health Service and Ghana AIDS Commission should also ensure that PrEP and PEP services are increased and include all sexually active persons in Ghana. This will ensure a great success in mitigating HIV infections in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In this paper, we analyzed the study of a mathematical model of non-linear differential equation on the effect of HIV/AIDS disease among unaware HIV/AIDS-infected population. Material and methods: Population was divided into four categories, including HIV-negative individuals, unaware HIV-positive cases, aware HIV-positive, and AIDS patients. The model was investigated numerically and analytically using fourth-order Runge-Kutta approach and homotopy perturbation method (HPM). Results: We have discussed the parameter variation graphically. Conclusions: Determining the dynamics of HIV prevalence and investigating the effect of each parameter on the governing equation can be simple with analytical solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines conflict and migration in different countries couple with the new crisis facing global governance in battling refugee's problem. The major causes of conflict are irreconcilable differences between political elites and rebels, bad governance and economic crunch leading to war and refugees movement. Refugees movement have overpopulated border in some states causing socio-economic disputes in host state sparking up confrontation between the local people and the migrants. The method used in this research is secondary and interview of returned migrants to ascertain the patterns of treatment and problems of migration. The study reveals that the pressure of escaping from their homeland either through war or seeking for jobs in another country have made migrants to be confrontational whenever they get to border that security guards are mindless of their long distance suffering. The study recommends that there should be development centres in both developed and developing countries to accommodate migrants running away from war-like state to stay for four years before repatriation to a place that demand their services, in doing so, they would have save for the purpose of investment and at the same time discourage request for permanent status in host state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a mathematical analysis of the HIV/AIDS deterministic model studied in the paper called Mathematical Model of HIV/AIDS Considering Sexual Preferences Under Antiretroviral Therapy, a case study in the previous works preformed by Espitia is performed. The objective is to gain insight into the qualitative dynamics of the model determining the conditions for the persistence or effective control of the disease in the community through the study of basic properties such as positiveness and boundedness; the calculus of the basic reproduction number; stationary points such as disease-free equilibrium (DFE), boundary equilibrium (BE) and endemic equilibrium (EE); and the local stability (LAS) of disease-free equilibrium. The findings allow us to conclude that the best way to reduce contagion and consequently reach a DFE is thought to be the reduction in the rate of homosexual partners, as they are the most affected population by the virus and are therefore the most likely to become infected and spread it. Increasing the departure rate of infected individuals leads to a decrease in untreated infected heterosexual men and untreated infected women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Discrimination by some healthcare providers toward people living with HIV/AIDS has been documented. Differences in cultural backgrounds make it harder for future doctors, who need a lot of knowledge and a positive attitude to treat patients. In conservative countries like Saudi Arabia, not enough is known about how much medical interns know about HIV and how they feel about people living with HIV/AIDS.Methods: From April to September 2021, this cross-sectional study use non-probability random sampling and utilized a self-administered questionnaire to collected the data from 346 medical interns who had graduated from five different medical schools.Results: Most of the subjects correctly identified the main transmission routes, such as unprotected sex (94.57%), blood and body fluid exchange (94.19%), and sharing needles or syringes (91.47%). But they did not know what the most common co-infections were for HIV patients or how to protect themselves after exposure. This paper showed that medical interns have some stigmatizing behaviors toward patients living with HIV, as 31.1% and 22.9% agreed, respectively, that they would feel more sympathetic toward people who get AIDS from blood transfusions compared to IV drug users (IDU).Conclusion: Medical interns also showed some positive attitudes, as more than half of the sample (56.2%) would not isolate beds for people living with HIV/AIDS. The study's conclusion is that HIV education and training programs should be added for medical interns, which might have a significant positive impact on their attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the historiography of the global response to HIV/AIDS. Since 1981, when the disease was first identified, there have been great strides in the medical and biological sciences in understanding the impact of the new virus on the human immune system. Although there is still no successful vaccine, antiretroviral (ART) treatment continues to improve the likelihood of HIV-positive people living long and healthy lives. We have also seen a few exciting cases of full recovery, which will allow scientists to explore new avenues towards a cure. Yet the AIDS pandemic is by no means over: 40 million have died and over 35 million individuals still live with HIV. More importantly, as historians and scholars in the humanities and social sciences have been pointing out since the early 1980s, HIV brought to light how non-medical factors play a critical role in a successful disease response. As the global community faces the aftermath of a new pandemic, it is timely to examine how broader social, economic, political, and cultural factors influence individual experiences of disease at local, national, international, and global scales. This essay examines how scholars have written historically about the HIV pandemic, using a variety of methods and approaches: from traditional histories of medicine to anthropologies of development. While HIV has sparked a massive corpus of historical reflection from a variety of disciplines, its contemporaneity means that "global AIDS historiography" cannot yet be described as a cohesive academic conversation. Yet what unites the scholarship, this essay argues, is its use of HIV to examine how and why post-war social and economic systems have achieved health objectives for some populations and not others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Managing multidrug-resistant (MDR) HIV infections in children is particularly challenging due to the lack of experience with new drugs in the pediatric setting. Second-line albuvirtide (ABT) with an optimized antiretroviral background therapy was approved for adults and adolescents after first-line treatment failure. This paper describes the treatment outcomes and adverse effects of an ABT-based dual-active antiretroviral treatment regimen in a child with MDR HIV strains. Case presentation: A 13 year-old Chinese female patient infected with MDR HIV strains showed a decrease in viral load (from 4.48 log10 to 1.73 log10) and an increase in CD4 + T cells (from 15 to 308 cells/µl) after 12 months of treatment with an ABT-based antiretroviral regimen. The child showed no relevant drug-related adverse reactions. Conclusions: The case reported here could suggest that an ABT-based antiretroviral therapy might be beneficial and without relevant toxicity in children with MDR HIV. Infectiologists specializing in managing HIV should be prepared to manage an increasing number of children with MDR HIV. ABT might be a new treatment option for MDR HIV infection in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lack of dependable morbidity and mortality data complicates efforts to measure the demographic or population-level impact of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Mortuary-based mortality surveillance can address gaps in vital statistics in low-resource settings by improving accuracy of measuring HIV-associated mortality and indicators of access to treatment services among decedents. This paper describes the process and considerations taken in conducting mortuary and hospital-based HIV mortality surveillance among decedents in Kenya.Main Text: We conducted HIV mortuary and hospital-based mortality surveillance at two of the largest mortuaries in Kisumu County, Kenya (April 16-July 12, 2019). Medical charts were reviewed for documentation of HIV status among eligible decedents. HIV testing was done on blood and oral fluid samples from decedents with undocumented HIV status and those whose medical records indicated HIV-negative test results > 3 months before death. A panel of experts established the cause of death according to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision rules. Civil registry data for the year 2017 were abstracted and coded to corresponding ICD-10 codes. Of the 1004 decedents admitted to the two mortuaries during the study period, 49 (4.9%) were unavailable because they had been transferred to other facilities or dispatched for burial before enrolment. Of the 955 available decedents, 104 (10.9%) were ineligible for the study. Blood samples were collected from 659 (77.4%) decedents, and 654 (99.2%) were tested for HIV. Of the 564 decedents eligible for the OraQuick® validation sub-study, 154 were eligible for oral sample collection, and 132 (85.7%) matched pre- and post-embalming oral samples were collected and tested. Of the 851 eligible decedents, 241 (28.3%) had evidence of HIV infection: 119 had a diagnosis of HIV infection recorded in their patient files, and 122 had serological evidence of HIV infection.Conclusion: This study shows that in low-resource settings, conducting hospital and mortuary-based surveillance is feasible and can be an alternative source of mortality data when civil registry data are inadequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Estudos Feministas is the property of Revista Estudos Feministas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction The HIV/AIDS prevention program among pregnant mothers aims to reduce the risk of HIV transmission from mother to baby. It also aims to reduce stigma and discrimination, as well as deaths due to HIV/AIDS. This paper aimed to find out obstacles that occur in the implementation of HIV/AIDS transmission program in Indonesia. Methods Online literature search was done on Google Scholar, Science Direct and PubMed databases with the keywords related to “HIV/AIDS” and transmission prevention program among mothers to children. The search resulted in a total of 343 articles. Results After the abstracts were reviewed, there were only 16 articles selected. Conclusions The implementation of the program in Indonesia has been run but is not yet optimal because of several obstacles i.e., the insufficient number of health workers and poor knowledge of health workers. Figuring out solutions to the obstacles could ease the program implementation to reduce the cases of HIV/AIDS. Obstacles were found in the implementation of the HIV/AIDS prevention program among mothers and children in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Africa, the burden of hypertension has been rising at an alarming rate for the last two decades and is a major cause for cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality and morbidity. Hypertension is characterised by elevated blood pressure (BP) ≥ 140/90 mmHg. Current hypertension guidelines recommend the use of antihypertensives belonging to the following classes: calcium channel blockers (CCB), angiotensin converting inhibitors (ACEI), angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB), diuretics, β-blockers, and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs), to manage hypertension. Still, a considerable number of hypertensives in Africa have their BP uncontrolled due to poor drug response and remain at the risk of CVD events. Genetic factors are a major contributing factor, accounting for 20% to 80% of individual variability in therapy and poor response. Poor response to antihypertensive drug therapy is characterised by elevated BPs and occurrence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). As a result, there have been numerous studies which have examined the role of genetic variation and its influence on antihypertensive drug response. These studies are predominantly carried out in non-African populations, including Europeans and Asians, with few or no Africans participating. It is important to note that the greatest genetic diversity is observed in African populations as well as the highest prevalence of hypertension. As a result, this warrants a need to focus on how genetic variation affects response to therapeutic interventions used to manage hypertension in African populations. In this paper, we discuss the implications of genetic diversity in CYP11B2, GRK4, NEDD4L, NPPA, SCNN1B, UMOD, CYP411, WNK, CYP3A4/5, ACE, ADBR1/2, GNB3, NOS3, B2, BEST3, SLC25A31, LRRC15 genes, and chromosome 12q loci on hypertension susceptibility and response to antihypertensive therapy. We show that African populations are poorly explored genetically, and for the few characterised genes, they exhibit qualitative and quantitative differences in the profile of pharmacogene variants when compared to other ethnic groups. We conclude by proposing prioritization of pharmacogenetics research in Africa and possible adoption of pharmacogenetic-guided therapies for hypertension in African patients. Finally, we outline the implications, challenges, and opportunities these studies present for populations of non-European descent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are numerous contagious diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites, that have the propensity to culminate in fatal consequences. A communicable disease is an illness caused by a contagion agent or its toxins and spread directly or indirectly to a susceptible animal or human host by an infected person, animal, vector, or immaterial environment. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, hepatitis A, B, and C, and measles are all examples of communicable diseases. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a communicable disease caused by HIV infection that has become the most severe issue facing humanity. The research work in this paper is to numerically explore a mathematical model and demonstrate the dynamics of HIV/AIDS disease transmission using a continuous Galerkin–Petrov time discretization of a higher-order scheme, specifically the cGP(2)-scheme. Depict a graphical and tabular comparison between the outcomes of the mentioned scheme and those obtained through other classical schemes that exist in the literature. Further, a comparison is performed relative to the well-known fourth-order Ruge–Kutta (RK4) method with different step sizes. By contrast, the suggested approach provided more accurate results with a larger step size than RK4 with a smaller step size. After validation and confirmation of the suggested scheme and code, we implement the method to the extended model by introducing a treatment rate and show the impact of various non-linear source terms for the generation of new cells. We also determined the basic reproduction number and use the Routh-Hurwitz criterion to assess the stability of disease-free and unique endemic equilibrium states of the HIV model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 co-infection is a common global health and socio-economic problem. In this paper, a mathematical model for the transmission dynamics of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 co-infection that incorporates protection and treatment for the infected (and infectious) groups is formulated and analyzed. Firstly, we proved the non-negativity and boundedness of the co-infection model solutions, analyzed the single infection models steady states, calculated the basic reproduction numbers using next generation matrix approach and then investigated the existence and local stabilities of equilibriums using Routh-Hurwiz stability criteria. Then using the Center Manifold criteria to investigate the proposed model exhibited the phenomenon of backward bifurcation whenever its effective reproduction number is less than unity. Secondly, we incorporate time dependent optimal control strategies, using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle to derive necessary conditions for the optimal control of the disease. Finally, we carried out numerical simulations for both the deterministic model and the model incorporating optimal controls and we found the results that the model solutions are converging to the model endemic equilibrium point whenever the model effective reproduction number is greater than unity, and also from numerical simulations of the optimal control problem applying the combinations of all the possible protection and treatment strategies together is the most effective strategy to drastically minimizing the transmission of the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 co-infection in the community under consideration of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human immunodeficiency viruses are two species of Lentivirus that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, a condition in which progressive immune system failure allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Human immunodeficiency virus infection came from a type of chimpanzee in Central Africa. Studies show that immunodeficiency viruses may have jumped from chimpanzees to humans as far back as the late 1800s. Over decades, human immunodeficiency viruses slowly spread across Africa and later into other parts of the world. The Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) models are significant in studying disease dynamics. In this paper, we have studied the effect of irresponsible immigrants on HIV/AIDS dynamics by formulating and considering different methods. Euler, Runge Kutta, and a Non-standard finite difference (NSFD) method are developed for the same problem. Numerical experiments are performed at disease-free and endemic equilibria points at different time step sizes 'h'. The results reveal that, unlike Euler and Runge Kutta, which fail for large time step sizes, the proposed Non-standard finite difference (NSFD) method gives a convergence solution for any time step size. Our proposed numerical method is bounded, dynamically consistent, and preserves the positivity of the continuous solution, which are essential requirements when modeling a prevalent disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile payment services have been widely applied in our daily life, where users can conduct transactions in a convenient way. However, critical privacy concerns have arisen. Specifically, a risk of participating in a transaction is the disclosure of personal privacy. This might occur if, for example, the user pays for some special medicine, such as AIDS medicine or contraceptives. In this paper, we propose a mobile payment protocol that is suitable for mobile devices only with limited computing resources. In particular, the user in a transaction can confirm the identity of others in the same transaction while the user cannot show convincing evidence to prove that others also take part in the same transactions. We implement the proposed protocol and test its computation overhead. The experiment results corroborate that the proposed protocol is suitable for mobile devices with limited computing resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, women represent more than half the people living with HIV. This proportion varies by country, with an over-representation of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) in some regions. For example, in Australia, MSM account for over 60% of transmissions, with heterosexual sex accounting for almost a quarter of transmissions. Irrespective of geographic region, there is evidence that women can have a different lived experience of HIV due to their unequal social and economic status in society, while MSM can have a different lived experience depending on the laws and customs of their geographic location. Gender differences related to risk factors, stigma, access to services, mental health, health-related quality of life and economic consequences have been consistently reported globally. This paper explores the subjective lived experience of gender and sexuality disparities among three individuals living with HIV in Australia: a male who identified as gay, and a male and female who each identified as heterosexual. Analysis of themes from these three case reports indicated discernible differences by gender and sexuality in four areas: access to medical services, social support, stigma and mental health. It is argued that knowledge and understanding of potential gender and sexuality disparities must be factored into supportive interventions for people living with HIV in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its clinical entity, the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) continue to represent an important health burden worldwide. Although great advances have been made towards determining the way viral genetic diversity affects clinical outcome, genetic association studies have been hindered by the complexity of their interactions with the human host. This study provides an innovative approach for the identification and analysis of epidemiological associations between HIV Viral Infectivity Factor (Vif) protein mutations and four clinical endpoints (Viral load and CD4 T cell numbers at time of both clinical debut and on historical follow-up of patients. Furthermore, this study highlights an alternative approach to the analysis of imbalanced datasets, where patients without specific mutations outnumber those with mutations. Imbalanced datasets are still a challenge hindering the development of classification algorithms through machine learning. This research deals with Decision Trees, Naïve Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machines (SVMs), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). This paper proposes a new methodology considering an undersampling approach to deal with imbalanced datasets and introduces two novel and differing approaches (MAREV-1 and MAREV-2). As theses approaches do not involve human pre-determined and hypothesis-driven combinations of motifs having functional or clinical relevance, they provide a unique opportunity to discover novel complex motif combinations of interest. Moreover, the motif combinations found can be analyzed through traditional statistical approaches avoiding statistical corrections for multiple tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: With the prolongation of life span and increasing incidence of comorbidities, polypharmacy has become a challenge for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH). This review aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to maintaining a high level of polypharmacy adherence in people living with HIV/AIDS. Methods: Nine electronic databases were searched for studies from 1996 to October 2021. Studies were included if they were conducted with adults living with HIV/AIDS and reported barriers and facilitators to maintaining a high level of polypharmacy adherence. This review presents a conceptual framework model to help understand the barriers and facilitators. Results: Twenty-nine studies were included. The majority of publications were observational studies. Eighty specific factors were identified and further divided into five categories, including individual factors, treatment-related factors, condition-related factors, healthcare provider-related factors, and socioeconomic factors, based on the multidimensional adherence model (MAM). Conclusion: Eighty factors associated with polypharmacy adherence among people living with HIV/AIDS were identified and grouped into five major categories. Healthcare providers can make decisions based on the five categories of relevant factors described in this paper when developing interventions to enhance polypharmacy adherence. It is recommended that medications be evaluated separately and that an overall medication evaluation be conducted at the same time to prevent inappropriate polypharmacy use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The COVID-19 epidemic and various control and mitigation measures to combat the widespread outbreak of the disease may affect other parts of health care systems. There is a concern that the COVID-19 pandemic could disrupt HIV services. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on service delivery and treatment outcomes in people with HIV. Methods: In this study, a systematic search was conducted using the keywords in the online databases including Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases. The retrieved articles underwent a two-step title/abstract and full-text review process, and the eligible papers were selected and included in the qualitative synthesis. Result: We selected 16 studies out of 529 retrieved records that met the inclusion criteria for this review. Study populations of the selected studies were either HIV-positive patients or HIV clinics and healthcare providers. Most studies were focused on adhering to and obtaining medication and attending clinical appointments and their decrement during the pandemic. Other aspects of HIV care (alternative healthcare settings, viral suppression, psychological care, etc.) were discussed to a lesser extent by the included studies. Conclusion: Interruption in in-person visits and medical follow-up services, loss of adherence to treatment, and subsequent increase in mortality due to the COVID-19 pandemic complications in PLHIV have led to growing concerns. Other challenges were psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression, an increase in substance abuse, and a rise in experienced stigma and discrimination. However, the use of telemedicine in some countries helps to alleviate the situation to some extent and is recommended in similar settings in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights experiences and perceptions of older gay males living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in relation to age, sexual orientation, HIV status and how they perceive health. Participants were gay males aged 50 and over living in England, diagnosed with HIV for longer than 2 years. In total, 19 interviews were conducted between March 2020 and March 2021. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three major themes were generated: 1.) Health as holistic and as a balance; 2.) The impact of HIV on people's lives; 3.) The Intersectionality of stigma: a lifetime of discrimination. Participants highlighted the changing nature of the concept of health through their lifespan while the intersectionality of stigma in different contexts is examined considering the personal journey of living with HIV. The implications of health as a complex concept and intersectional stigma on the planning and delivering of care in this population are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hygeia: Revista Brasileira de Geografia Médica e da Saúde is the property of Hygeia: Revista Brasileira de Geografia Medica e da Saude and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Taking into account the effects of the heterogeneity of the population and media coverage on disease transmission, in this paper, a hybrid HIV/AIDS model with age-structure, self-protection awareness and media coverage is formulated, which is made up of five partial differential equations (PDEs) and one ordinary differential equation (ODE). We establish the existence of the solution associated with the hybrid system and prove that the solution is unique, bounded and positive utilizing the semigroup approach. Based on the basic reproduction number R 0 , the threshold dynamics of this model are rigorously investigated, that is, there always is a unique disease-free steady state E 0 and it is globally stable when R 0 < 1 , that is, the disease dies out. Further, there exists a unique endemic steady state E * and it is locally stable when R 0 > 1 and some additional technical conditions are met. In addition, the uniform persistence of this hybrid system is demonstrated for R 0 > 1 , which means that the disease remains at the endemic level for a long time, which is not discussed in other age-structured infectious disease articles. Numerical simulations are also given to explain the main theoretical results, which suggest that age variability is a non-negligible factor in HIV/AIDS transmission, that is, the moment and scale of HIV/AIDS outbreaks are diverse for people of different ages, and media coverage can encourage people to take steps to avoid potential infection and control the spread of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is an acquired defect of the cellular immunity associated with the infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The disease has reached pandemic proportion and has been considered a public health concern. This study is aimed at analyzing the trend of HIV/AIDS research in Nigeria. Method: We used the PUBMED database to a conduct bibliometric analysis of HIV/AIDS-related research in Nigeria from 1986 to 2021 employing "HIV", "AIDS", "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome", "Human immunodeficiency virus", and "Nigeria" as search description. The most common bibliometric indicators were applied for the selected publications. Result: The number of scientific research articles retrieved for HIV/AIDS-related research in Nigeria was 2796. Original research was the predominant article type. Articles authored by 4 authors consisted majority of the papers. The University of Ibadan was found to be the most productive institution. Institutions in the United States dominated external production with the University of Maryland at the top. The most utilized journal was PLoS ONE. While Iliyasu Z. was the most productive principal author, Crowel TA. was the overall most productive author with the highest collaborative strength. The keyword analysis using overlay visualization showed a gradual shift from disease characteristics to diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Trend in HIV/AIDS research in Nigeria is increasing yet evolving. Four articles were retracted while two had an expression of concern. Conclusion: The growth of scientific literature in HIV/AIDS-related research in Nigeria was found to be high and increasing. However, the hotspot analysis still shows more unexplored grey areas in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV is a virus that weakens a person's immune system. HIV has three stages, and AIDS is the most severe stage of HIV (Stage 3). People with HIV should take medicine (called ART) recommended by WHO as soon as possible to reduce the amount of virus in the body. In this paper, we formulate a mathematical model for HIV/AIDS with a new approach by focusing on two groups of infectious individuals, HIV and AIDS. We also introduce a controlled class (treated patients and being monitored), and people in this class can spread the disease. We further investigate the essential dynamics of the model through an equilibrium analysis. Optimal control theory is applied to explore effective treatment strategies by combining two control measures: standard antiretroviral therapy and AIDS treatments. Numerical simulation results show the effects of the two time-dependent controls, and they can be used as guidelines for public health interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a partial randomized response technique to collect reliable sensitive data for estimation of population proportion in ranked set sampling (RSS) scheme using auxiliary information. The idea is to increase confidence and (or) co-operation of the respondents by providing them the option of both 'direct' and 'randomized' response for the inquired sensitive question. This option is quite logical because perception of sensitive (insensitive) inquiry can vary among respondents. The properties of the proposed method are discussed and compared with existing randomized response techniques. Cost analysis is also carried out to prove supremacy of the suggested method. Finally, an application to clinical trial on AIDS is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is still active worldwide with no existing definitive cure. Based on the WHO recommendations stated in 2014, a treatment, called Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), has been used in the world, and more particularly in France since 2016, to prevent HIV infections. In this paper, we propose a new compartmental epidemiological model with a limited protection time offered by this new treatment. We describe the PrEP compartment with an age-structure hyperbolic equation and introduce a differential equation on the parameter that governs the PrEP starting process. This leads us to a nonlinear differential–difference system with discrete delay. After a local stability analysis, we prove the global behavior of the system. Finally, we illustrate the solutions with numerical simulations based on the data of the French Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) population. We show that the choice of a logistic time dynamics combined with our Hill-function-like model leads to a perfect data fit. These results enable us to forecast the evolution of the HIV epidemics in France if the populations keep using PrEP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is still one of the main health problems worldwide. It is therefore essential to keep making progress in improving the prognosis and quality of life of affected patients. One way to advance along this pathway is to uncover connections between other disorders associated with HIV/AIDS—so that they can be anticipated and possibly mitigated. We propose to achieve this by using Association Rules (ARs). They allow us to represent the dependencies between a number of diseases and other specific diseases. However, classical techniques systematically generate every AR meeting some minimal conditions on data frequency, hence generating a vast amount of uninteresting ARs, which need to be filtered out. The lack of manually annotated ARs has favored unsupervised filtering, even though they produce limited results. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised system, able to identify relevant ARs among HIV-related diseases with a minimal amount of annotated training data. Our system has been able to extract a good number of relationships between HIV-related diseases that have been previously detected in the literature but are scattered and are often little known. Furthermore, a number of plausible new relationships have shown up which deserve further investigation by qualified medical experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]