On the Structure of the Epidemic Spread of AIDS: The Influence of an Infectious Coagent

Abstract

The reported AIDS cases in the USA and the Federal Republic of Germany are growing almost exponentially. Considering the epidemiological curves for different risk groups (homosexual men, i.v. drug abusers, heterosexual partners etc.) it is extremely surprising, that nearly exactly the same development occurs in all risk groups. One only has to consider a certain time shift for each group. The conformity of the development for all groups is evident by the fact, that the curves representing the reported AIDS cases for different risk groups are straight lines (in a logarithmic scale) running nearly exactly in parallel. This remarkable parallelism can be understood only if the spread of AIDS is independent of the sexual or drug risk in a certain sense. On the other hand, the drastic overrepresentation of the sexually highly active groups and drug abusers in the number of AIDS cases obviously requires that the transmission of AIDS unequivocally depends on the sexual and drug risk. We present a mathematical model that is suitable to reconcile this apparent contradiction in the interpretation of the epidemiological data: the observed parallel time series for the spread of AIDS in groups with different risk of infection can be realized by computer simulation, if one assumes that the outbreak of full-blown AIDS only occurs if HIV and a certain infectious coagent (cofactor) CO are present. Such a situation is not uncommon, see, e.g. the influenza virus--Staphylococcus aureus system. According to the mathematical model this cofactor would spread independently of the sexual and drug risk--in contrast to HIV. However, due to its analytical properties the simulated cofactor cannot be identified so far with any known infectious agent.