HIV and the growing health burden from noncommunicable diseases in Botswana: modelling study

The "greying of AIDS" - the aging of the population living with HIV who benefit from antiretroviral treatment (ART) and the emergence of age-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) - has been well documented. The emerging health systems challenges - eg, the implications of HIV on the disease burden from NCDs on the population level, and the evolving role of HIV as a co-morbidity or co-existing disease of various NCDs - are less well understood. The paper elucidates these challenges by providing a quantitative analysis of HIV-NCD interactions for Botswana.

We projected the prevalence of HIV and of selected NCDs in Botswana using demographic and HIV-specific estimates building on data on the state and the dynamics of the HIV epidemic, using the Spectrum modelling software, and extrapolating on estimates of the prevalence of NCDs from the 2015 global burden of disease (GBD).

HIV has slowed down overall population aging and thus has attenuated the growing burden of many NCDs so far, because cohorts reaching old age have been decimated by AIDS-related mortality in the 1990s and early 2000s. Aging and the rise in the prevalence of NCDs, however, will accelerate rapidly from about 2030 because of reduced attrition of cohorts living with HIV since the start of the ART scale-up in Botswana. While HIV prevalence will decline over time, the health needs of people living with HIV will become more complex. HIV prevalence among the growing populations affected by various important NCDs will not decline for decades, because of the aging of the population living with HIV and interactions between HIV, ART and NCDs.

Even though HIV prevalence is projected to decline steeply to 2030 because of reduced HIV incidence, the prevalence of HIV among people affected by many of the most important NCDs will increase or barely change. While the health care needs of people living with HIV will increase and become more complex, HIV will also emerge as a key factor complicating the management of the growing burden of NCDs. Health systems will need to prepare for the challenge of large numbers of patients living with both HIV and NCDs.