HIV epidemic types and customized prevention responses.

Abstract

Since the first reported case of AIDS 27 years ago, more than 70 million people have been infected with HIV worldwide, and 25 million have died of AIDS. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that 33 million people are currently living with HIV. The global prevalence of HIV has leveled off, but the total number of people living with HIV continues to grow.1 This article briefly discusses the roles that different HIV transmission modes play in the worldwide pandemic, and explains how the global pandemic is actually a complex mosaic of dynamic epidemics within and between countries.2 Further, it discusses matching appropriate prevention responses to two different types of epidemics: generalized and concentrated.