11)OptAIDS: Can we halt the AIDS epidemic using optimal donor spending models
Principal organiser: Dr. Robert Smith?

We face a unique, transitory opportunity in the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, because we have collectively pooled money faster than the epidemic has grown. Can we then seize the moment and halt this epidemic now? Most scenarios for the future of HIV/AIDS project modest reductions spread out over decades. The very timescale of such projections, beyond the persistence time of all models, makes them unreliable. Can we do better, quicker? We raise two questions:

1. Can we optimally spend our way out of the HIV/AIDS epidemic?

2. Can we work together to build a World Halting AIDS Model (WHAM) that would permit us to estimate the quickest way to halt HIV/AIDS, monitor our success, and adjust our strategy as we go?

This minisymposium aims to bring together mathematicians, epidemiologists and health economists to create the WHAM model of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. All are welcome to participate.