Lessons from the 2012 National HIV Household Survey to improve mathematical modelling for HIV policy

Since the start of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, mathematical models fitted to surveillance data have been heavily relied on for estimating and projecting the future course of HIV epidemics. The establishment of HIV surveillance at antenatal clinics in the late 1980s created routinely available data for systematically monitoring HIV epidemics across Africa, but mathematical models are needed to relate these data to the outcomes that matter most for responding to HIV epidemics: HIV in the general population, new HIV infections, and HIV deaths.