Costs and Benefits of HIV-1 Antibody Testing of Donated Blood

Abstract

Costs and benefits of the testing protocol for screening donated blood for the HIV-1 virus are evaluated. Estimates are made of the number of HIV-1 infections and cases of AIDS prevented in a year by blood testing, as well as the costs of providing this risk reduction. The risk reduction provided by alternative tests such as the HIV-1 antigen test is also discussed. The value of the risk reduction provided by blood testing is generated utilizing willingness-to-pay value-of-life estimates. The findings indicate that the present testing protocol is cost beneficial and support the FDA decision not to recommend the HIV-1 antigen test for use in donor testing. Policy decisions concerning present and future testing protocols are discussed, and implications for broadening our model to include indirect benefits of donor testing are evaluated.

Social Constructions of People with AIDS: Target Populations and United States Policy, 1981–1990

“…Sciences 1981-1992 revealed only a single article that was focused on AIDS, an examination of AIDS policymaking in Great Britain (Day and Klein, 1989). Two recent articles have appeared in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management-an address arguing for the importance of thoughtful implementation if an HIV vaccine is developed (Levin, 1993), and a cost benefit analysis of the testing protocol used to screen donated blood for HIV (Gelles, 1993). I use "HIV/AIDS" and "AIDS" interchangeably throughout.…”

Efficiency of Interventions in HIV Infection, 1994???2004

“…testing cost $US100 per case averted. Gelles [129] estimated a program cost of between $US36 300 and 4.7 Other Blood-Related Interventions $US128 833 per HIV case averted, but that the cost per AIDS case averted was at least twice the cost of these estimates. Adding an AuBuchon and Birkmeyer [142] and Pereira [143] both used obser-HIV-antigen test increased the cost to more than $US12 million vational studies data to model the effect of treating blood plasma per case averted.…”

Policy Modeling to Support Administrative Decisionmaking on the New York State Hiv Testing Law

“…Other system dynamics modelers have previously described dynamic models of HIV infection (Homer & St. Clair, 1991;Sterman, 2000), and other mathematical models have evaluated related topics such as the cost benefit of testing the blood supply (Gelles, 1993) and strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV (Kahn & Marseille, 2002). This model differs in several ways.…”