Cari van Schalkwyk
Are associations between HIV and human papillomavirus transmission due to behavioural confounding or biological effects?Wednesday 6 June, 19:00, AIMS Main Lecture Hall
Abstract: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a sexually transmitted infection that causes cervical cancer. Co-infection with HIV increase rates of progression to cancer and decreases rates of HPV clearance and cervical disease regression. In addition, epidemiological studies suggest a ~2 fold increased risk of newly detecting HPV infection for HIV-infected individuals and ~2 fold increased risk of HIV acquisition following HPV detection, after adjusting for sexual behaviour. We conducted a mathematical modelling study to assess whether confounding behavioural factors and network effects are sufficient to explain these associations between HIV and HPV transmission, without biological interactions.
About: Cari is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University of Cape Town and a Researcher at SACEMA. She was an MMED participant in 2012 and a DAIDD participant in 2014, served as an MMED mentor in 2014 and 2016, and joined the Workshop Faculty in 2016. Cari studied actuarial science and statistics and became involved with SACEMA through a Masters project relating to HIV incidence estimation. After a brief stint in the private sector, she joined SACEMA as research staff, working mostly on the biostatistical analyses of HIV and TB related projects. She is currently working towards a PhD on the interaction between HIV, HPV and its progression to cervical cancer, using an individual based model.