HIV Stages Contributions to the Epidemic, Due to a Changing Viral Load

It is very important to understand the contribution of the various HIV progression stages -acute, asymptomatic, late-, so as to optimize the fight against the HIV epidemic. In the last recent years, some have given the acute phase the responsibility for the majority of the new infections, while others thought that the late phase was more important, no doubt because these two phases are more infectious. More recently, it was argued that no HIV stage is dominant in the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Here, by a simple population model with continuous influx of susceptible individuals, and using known relationships between the viral load, the duration of the asymptomatic infection and transmission probability, we calculated the contributions of each stage to the spreading of the disease in a high risk group. Also, we analyzed some evolutionary scenarios, in which the virulence of the virus can evolve.