Criteria for initiation of highly active antiretroviral treatments (HAART) in HIV-infected patients remain a matter of debate world-wide because short-term benefits have to be balanced with costs of these therapies, and restrictions placed on future treatment options if resistant viral strains develop. On the other hand, postponing the introduction of HAART may involve a therapeutic opportunity cost if a patient’s health is allowed to deteriorate to such an extent of becoming unable to benefit from new treatments currently under development when they become available. We introduce a two period model where period one treatment adoption is an irreversible act with future, but uncertain, consequences. New information, both endogenous and exogenous, arises over time and shapes the conditions surrounding the second period therapeutic decision. A surprising result is that, under conditions that appear close to those surrounding the HAART debate, the magnitude of the feared resistance effect has no effect on leaves the optimal treatment decision as far as it is high enough.
Le bien-fondé d’administrer précocement des traitements antirétroviraux à haute activité (HAART) aux personnes infectées par le VIH reste objet de débats dans le monde, car leurs bienfaits à court terme peuvent compromettre les traitements futurs si se développent des souches résistantes du virus. Par ailleurs retarder le recours aux HAART comporte un coût d’opportunité thérapeutique si la santé du patient se dégrade au point qu’il ne peut plus bénéficier par la suite des traitements encore en cours de développement. Nous formulons un modèle à deux périodes où l’adoption du traitement de première période est irréversible et engage le futur, alors que des informations et connaissances nouvelles, exogènes et endogènes, déterminent les conditions entourant la décision thérapeutique de deuxième période. Paradoxalement, sous des conditions reflétant bien les enjeux du recours aux HAART, il s’avère que l’effet résistance éventuel a d’autant moins de chance d’importer pour la décision optimale, que sa gravité est élevée.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)