London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Almost 40 years on since the first cases were reported, HIV has spread rapidly throughout the world. Today, the epidemic is markedly heterogeneous, with very low prevalence in some countries, while in some African countries still more than 25% of the adult population are living with HIV. Though in the last decades scale-up of antiretroviral have significantly improved life expectancy and quality of life of affected populations, HIV is still one of the leading causes of death globally. There is no question that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still one of the most important global public health priorities. 

In this module, you will discover that a full understanding of the HIV epidemic and its control can only be achieved by a multidisciplinary and intersectoral approach that requires careful attention to political, social, economic and cultural issues, and the active involvement of a wide range of stakeholders. To cover and address this, the module combines aspects of virology, immunology, clinical medicine, epidemiology and social sciences. This module aims to give you a broad understanding of the HIV epidemic, and to equip you to be able to analyse the appropriateness of alternative therapeutic and preventive intervention strategies in different settings. The module has been carefully prepared to be accessible to students with different backgrounds – some of the students taking this module are clinicians, others laboratory scientists, and others social scientists.

Intended learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the module, a student should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key concepts related to the epidemiology, infection dynamics, and natural history of HIV.
• Describe and critically appraise the different components of HIV services and how HIV programmes are designed and implemented to meet the needs of all people living with HIV.
• Critically evaluate how political, social, economic and ethical contexts impact the HIV response.
• Integrate the aforementioned knowledge and skills to develop context-specific HIV prevention, testing and treatment programmes.

Session Content

The module is expected to cover the following topics:

• The biology of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and how this affects the immune system.
• Clinical features of HIV infection including diagnosis and treatment.
• Epidemiology of HIV infection.
• Routes of transmission and the impact of HIV/AIDS prevention and control strategies.
• Social determinants that are relevant to the spread and control of HIV.
• Issues related to HIV programming, counselling and ethical issues.
• An in-depth debate.

Mode of delivery

This module is delivered predominantly face-to-face. Where specific teaching methods (lectures, seminars, discussion groups) are noted in this module specification these will be delivered by predominantly face-to-face sessions. There will be a combination of live and interactive activities (synchronous learning) as well as self-directed study (asynchronous learning).

Assessment

The formal assessment of this module is a three-page report. The first two pages are based on group work presenting a profile of an HIV epidemic in a specified country (30%). The third page is based on individual coursework preparing a concept note for a funding application (70%).

Credits

• CATS: 15
• ECTS: 7.5

Module specification

For full information regarding this module please see the module specification.