Modeling HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa

Background
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that can lead to acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, if not treated. The goal if this model is to get an idea of
how AIDS in South Africa has affected the population and society. In this model we would like
to see a decrease in population, as well as a decrease in the workforce. Then as treatment is
introduced an increase should be apparent.

Method
In this model we have a population of adults which then can flow into the workforce, HIV+, or
dead. The adult supply is from a maturation rate from younger generations. People in the
workforce can become infected with HIV, which is quantified by an infection rate. These HIV+
people can either then be treated and flow into a treated stock, or die through a HIV death rate
and go to the “Dead” stock.
Some assumptions include, that all treated patients with AIDS no longer have the condition after
treatment, adults are healed once it is administered, each person must have a certain constant
probability of infecting each susceptible person, and a person can not have HIV and be in the
workforce at the same time.
Sources used include a data collector called Gapminder https://www.gapminder.org/tools.
Through this tool UNIDS, International Labor Association, and Lancet were used. Also the
World Health Organization was a source.

Results
Conclusion
Through the results shown above, we can see the drop in adult population and the halt in the
workforce. This shows us that during the 1960s in Southern Africa there were issues with
HIV/AIDS that did have an impact on the adult population. This model shows us that the
treatment discovered was successful, because of the increase of population after the epidemic.
The next step for this model would be to include different age categories to see how HIV would
affect a generation. Different diseases in addition to HIV/AIDS could be added as well to see
how other variables affect the population.