Evaluating the efficacy of adult hiv post exposure prophylaxis regimens in relation to transmission risk factors by multi criteria decision method

Abstract

There are approximately 39 million people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) worldwide. Although antiretroviral treatment (ART) has revolutionized the treatment and management of the HIV infection, a cure still remains elusive. In addition to ART’s success at prolonging the lives of the infected individuals, it also has its uses in other cases. For example, post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) ART regimens are used after potential exposure to HIV to prevent the establishment of the HIV infection by up to 80% when administered in a timely manner. There are many guidelines available for these situations; however, they have differences in terms of their content and very few guidelines suggest specific PEP ART regimens for particular risk factors. Our study uses a multi criteria decision making method called Fuzzy PROMETHEE to evaluate the effectiveness of selected PEP ART regimens according to specified transmission risk factors for HIV. The risk factors were the criteria in this study and were weighted according to experts’ opinions in terms of their relative importance.