The Potential Effects of HIV Vaccines in South Africa

This presentation will begin with a brief overview of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa and the prospects for an effective HIV vaccine. It will then introduce the ASSA2002 Vaccine model, a model developed to quantify the potential effects of HIV vaccines in South Africa. The model is used to identify which vaccine distribution strategies are likely to be most efficient when vaccine supplies are limited. It is also used to assess the effects of strategies that are possible when there is sufficient vaccine stock to immunize a large proportion of the population. Results suggest that a sterilizing 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 25%. 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.