AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL OF THE REPRODUCTIVE RATE OF HIV-INFECTION - FORMULATION, EVALUATION, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR RISK REDUCTION INTERVENTIONS

The future course of the HIV/AIDS epidemic depends on the ratio of secondary to primary infections early in the epedemic. If this ratio, here called the reproductive rate of infection, exceeds unity then the epidemic can be expected to flourish, otherwise it will eventually abate. Estimates of the reproductive rate of HIV infection, obtained via a Bernoulli process model of the sexual transmission of HIV, indicate that decreasing the infectivity of the virus, through the consistent use of condoms, for example, is more effective at reducing the reproductive rate of infection than is limiting the number of sexual partners, regardless of the initial prevalence of HIV infection in the population under consideration.