Simulations of human immunodeficiency virus infection

Abstract

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) have been very important problems all over the world. The progression of HIV infection into AIDS is controlled with anti-HIV drugs, but the treatments with the anti-HIV drugs have some problems. Hence, the research and development of more effective anti-HIV treatments have been performed. As we consider it important to understand the dynamics of HIV infection, we propose a new mathematical model of HIV infection. The model is characterized by the calculations of responses against stimuli; that is, the experimental phenomena (when the values of responses are plotted against the logarithm of the values of stimuli, a sigmoid curve is obtained) are incorporated into the model. By using the calculations of the model, we obtain the simulation results which show a slow increase in the viral load and a slow decrease in non-infected CD4/sup +/ T cells after the acute phase.