UNAIDS Epidemiology Reference Group

Staff

Secretariat (Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine)

• Roy M Anderson
• Geoff P Garnett (Chair)
• Simon Gregson

UNAIDS (Epidemic and Impact Monitoring, UNAIDS):

• Peter Ghys (Chair)
• Karen Stanecki

Activities

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Epidemiology Reference Group consists of a panel of international researchers and policy-makers working in the fields of demography, epidemiology and HIV prevention. The Reference Group is chaired by Dr Peter Ghys and Prof Geoff Garnett. It is coordinated by its Secretariat, based in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, which includes Prof Garnett and the Coordinator, who is a dedicated researcher. The main objectives of the Reference Group are to:

• To streamline the interpretation and communication of data on HIV epidemiology

• To regularly review and disseminate available evidence and opinions on the predicted scale of the HIV epidemic and its impact

• To endorse and provide methods and parameter estimates that allow UNAIDS and other organisations to produce country-specific estimates and projections of the numbers of people infected with HIV, dying from AIDS, or orphaned due to AIDS

The activities of the Reference Group are documented its website, which contains a list of participants at its meetings and technical reports.

The Reference Group was established in 1997 and has held a series of successful meetings with outputs directly useful to UNAIDS and other international organisations. To capitalise on the success of the group, and to formalise and streamline its running the secretariat was established in 1999. Since 1999 the secretariat has organised meetings focusing on topics including short-term (5-10 year) projections of HIV/AIDS prevalence and incidence, HIV surveillance, orphanhood measurement and projection, economics and epidemiology of interventions to prevent HIV spread. The secretariat has also produced methodology and papers documenting that methodology for the production of estimates and projections of HIV prevalence and also maternal, paternal and dual orphan numbers due to AIDS, and produced models for the dynamics of HIV transmitted by unprotected sex and needle sharing among injecting drug users.