Epidemiologic and Economic Impacts of Halting National HIV Prevention Efforts

News outlets are reporting that CDC's HIV prevention program including its Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) efforts are slated to be defunded. One way to estimate the potential impacts of halting HIV prevention in the nation is to use mathematical modeling to provide informed estimates of the epidemiologic and economic impacts of this purported policy shift. We describe here a basic transmission rate model to estimate the HIV-related epidemiologic and economic horizon through 2030 as if funding were untouched and as if it were to be ended. This model is compared to other lenses through which to view the halting of national HIV prevention. Through any employed analytic lens, the result seems similar - ending HIV prevention efforts means the epidemic will get worse, lives will be lost, and not only will money not be saved but the net additional medical costs will rapidly increase. If this worsening of the epidemic comes to pass, the nation will enter the next decade far worse off than it is now, and efforts to get back to the current HIV-related "starting place" will need to be larger, more intensive, and much more expensive. There was a national hope that the ending of the current decade would indeed be the end of the epidemic; but if HIV prevention support is stopped, we would not be able to experience this important and joyous HIV elimination milestone in 2030 but rather be left to witness just how much worse the epidemic may get.