HIV self-eradication
March 10, 2008
Please excuse (and if possible correct) any ignorance on my part regarding the subject; I merely propose an idea and do not profess any knowledge of the complexities of the matter.
Propagation of HIV requires hosts and a transfer mechanism between them such as intercourse, contaminated needles (horizontal transfer) or mother-to-child (vertical transfer). Without antiretroviral treatment the sum of median progression time to AIDS (9-10 years) and median survival time with AIDS (about 9 months) is insufficient for children to reach an age of sexual activity, thus eliminating their chance for further vertical transmission.
With further transfers through infected infants removed, without medical intervention, the initial generation of infected hosts would pass on and deprive the virus of adequate host numbers for propagation—resulting in extinction. Ethically this is far from a viable solution but may prove to be an interesting exercise in mathematical modelling of the situation to determine necessary parameters for self-eradication.
Entry Filed under: Health, Maths, Statistics. Tags: AIDS, HIV, mathematical model, statistical model.
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1.
shlog | March 10, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Two parameters which may not allow for such circumstances would be the skewness of the distributions of progression time to and survival time with AIDS; long tails may provide enough total survival time for a sufficient number of infected infants to reach sexual maturity. I suspect that due to the longer length of time to progression such instances in this first distribution may have a more considerable effect on the outcome of the model. A strong positive correlation between the two could result in the same effect.
2.
Josh | May 27, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Found this page from a Google Chuck Norris trick… anyways. Can’t remember the study off the top of my head but I came across this when researching infectious diseases for a paper. The HIV virus has been known to promote less deadly variants when propagation is less frequent in a population, so its very possible that the weaker strains of the HIV virus would thrive in the surviving HIV infected community allowing young hosts to reach sexual maturity and spread the disease…. just an idea, and I’m no biology major so could be full of holes for all I know
3.
madman | July 3, 2008 at 7:33 pm
very interesting post. i was just having the same conversation with a friend the other day. i would love to see someone do the math on this, (as im no math wiz). seems to me that since many of the africans lack modern technology, if the west would not interfere. then populational plateau should take effect. many regions are overpopulated for their food supply, if medical and food aid would cease, then starvation and disease would stablilze the population to a sustainable level. just like when deer overpopulate, they run out of food, all the weaker get ill, and die-off begins. the stronger healthier survive, repopulate a healthier poopulation. aids is probably just a solution to the problem we call africa.
4.
Chris | July 12, 2008 at 2:59 pm
madman, you’re an idiot.
5.
shlog | July 13, 2008 at 2:03 am
Chris, while I would disagree with the final point of referring to Africa as “the problem”, all that madman did was draw a comparison between my idea and something observed in nature. All that you did was waste bandwidth.
6.
sarah | July 28, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Two points:
1. I don’t have any statistical data to demonstrate that this level of maturity may be widespread, but when I worked with HIV/AIDS patients a few years ago, a number of the patients were teenagers, born with the virus, who were just then beginning to take meds for it (i.e., in their late teens, well past the age at which they could have begun to procreate).
2. Much of the starvation problems in Africa has to do with distribution, not amount. Read Amartya Sen for a good discussion – if you don’t like him, I’d be happy to give you more citations (would now, but I’m not on my laptop). It’s hardly analogous to oversized deer populations.