Evaluating social protection mitigation effects on HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis through a mathematical modelling study.

The global economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, and worldwide inflation surge may have a profound impact on poverty-related infectious diseases, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). In this work, we developed mathematical models for HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB) in Brazil, one of the largest and most unequal LMICs, incorporating poverty rates and temporal dynamics to evaluate and forecast the impact of the increase in poverty due to the economic crisis, and estimate the mitigation effects of alternative poverty-reduction policies on the incidence and mortality from AIDS and TB up to 2030. Three main intervention scenarios were simulated-an economic crisis followed by the implementation of social protection policies with none, moderate, or strong coverage-evaluating the incidence and mortality from AIDS and TB.