An application of system dynamics to monitor HIV disease progression in a resource limited setting

Abstract

Use of system dynamics methodology in modelling HIV/AIDS disease progression is not very few ,however use of triangulation of methodologies in form of the dynamic synthesis methodology (DSM) to model the relationship between surrogate markers for monitoring HIV/AIDS disease progression is entirely new.A triangulation of methodologies called DSM combining system dynamics and case study methodo0logies was used to establish the relationships of HIV/AIDS surrogate markers to arrive at an appropriate model for monitoring the HIV/AIDS disease progression in a resource limited setting.The problem was initially analysed in its natural form to arrive at an appropriate reference modes followed by simulation experiments that were used to map values of plasma cd4 cell count onto those of total lymphocyte count and haemoglobin and HIV viral load onto cd8cd38 density representing the same disease rate.The paper makes useful contribution in suggesting surrogate HIV/AIDS makers in a resource limited setting.