The potential effect of an HIV / AIDS vaccine in South Africa

Abstract

This paper presents a model for assessing the potential effect of an HIV / AIDS vaccine in South Africa, and for calculating the amount of vaccine that would be required. A number of different hypothetical vaccine profiles and vaccine distribution strategies are considered. Results suggest that a sterilising vaccine could reduce the HIV incidence between 2015 and 2025 by up to 50%, while a disease-modifying vaccine would be unlikely to reduce HIV incidence by more than a third. The effect on AIDS mortality over the same period would be substantially smaller, and it is unlikely that any preventive vaccine would reduce AIDS mortality by more than 10% between 2015 and 2025.