One response to “Climbing”

1. 

   Dominic Rooney

   13 years Ago

   I’m very sceptical of these figures. The last time I looked (a while ago, to be fair) the only reliable HIV statistics came from blood tests at pre-natal clinics around the country. Other sources were used but the quality of the data was, I recall, not good (and this was acknowledged). The MRC reports that predicted 7 million HIV cases then modelled the population as a whole. A model is no better than the assumptions the modeller made, their skills with statistics and the personal bias for a particular result. And if the desire is to panic the Government into action (sound familiar ?) the estimates look even more questionable. If the current prediction is 5.2 million, why are only 870 000 people receiving ARV treatment ? The use of models is a fact of life but the honest approach when reporting figures derived from them is to indicate (no problem these days with the ubiquity of the InterWeb) how the numbers were derived.

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