A CA Model for HIV Transmission among Intravenous Drug Users

A new cellular automata model is proposed in this paper to analyze the influence of personal and social factors on HIV transmission among intravenous drug users, where a person’s gender, age, and education level, as well as the attitudes of surrounding people to drug use are considered. The simulation results show that due to the impacts of latency and symptom phase of AIDS epidemic, the time-quantity curves of drug users with and without HIV virus demonstrate some attenuate shockwaves. Under the lack of supervision, HIV will be transmitted rapidly among drug users, even to general population. The transmission speed can be limited remarkably if supervision power is strengthened. In order to control the transmission among drug users more effectively, the supervision power should be not only strengthened, but also distributed scientifically.