Modeling maternal infant HIV transmission having variable hazard rates with two lag time distributions

Abstract

Mother to infant transmission of HIV can occur in utero, intr-apartum or post-partum. Postnatal HIV transmission through contaminated breast milk is of particular concern. A knowledge of the timing of perinatal transmission of HIV would be valuable for the determination and evaluation of preventive treatments. The present article proposes the models that simultaneously estimates the risks of perinatal transmission together with the sensitivity of the screening tests for HIV infection having variable hazard rates. The methods are illustrated with the data from a randomized control study, conducted in South Africa.

Keywords:

• Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
• maximum likelihood
• mother-to-infant HIV transmission
• perinatal HIV transmission
• transmission probabilities
• variable hazard rates