HIV incidence in Ethiopian immigrants to Israel

The HIV incidence in recent adult Ethiopian immigrants to Israel is estimated through the use of snapshot estimators based on percentage of CD4 progression with time since infection, whereas the preimmigration incidence experienced by this population is estimated using an epidemic model applied to HIV prevalence data obtained from immigrants on arrival in Israel. The snapshot estimators place incidence in adult Ethiopian immigrants in Israel between 3 and 11 infections/1000 uninfected persons/year around May 1995. In contrast, the epidemic model suggests that the incidence experienced by this population before immigration was between 12 and 22 infections/1000 uninfected persons/year. Although the drop in incidence postimmigration is good news, in the aggregate, we estimate that between 50 and 190 new infections have occurred annually in adult Ethiopians who have immigrated to Israel.