This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

HIV incidence reduced with ‘treatment as prevention’ method

Issue: April 2012

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

SEATTLE — Treatment as prevention strategy resulted in significant reductions in HIV incidence in a sub-Saharan African setting where the incidence for HIV acquisition is high, according to Frank Tanser, MD.

Tanser and colleagues hypothesized that the rollout of increased ART coverage would lead to a decreased risk for HIV within the surrounding community of a rural hyper-endemic setting in sub-Saharan Africa.

“We wanted to see if we could use observational data we collected to test the ‘treatment as prevention’ hypothesis in a real-world sub-Saharan African setting,” he said. “This area has an incredibly high rate for acquiring HIV infection. The lifetime risk of acquiring HIV is 80% in females and 70% among males — this is incredibly high. Since 2004, there has been a rapid rollout of ART and between 2004 and 2011 — about 20,000 individuals were initiated on treatment.”

Data were pooled on adults aged 15 years and older included in the longitudinal HIV and demographic surveillance South Africa program (n=10,000 people/year). The researchers compiled spatial variation estimates in the proportion of HIV infected adults taking ART between 2004 and 2011.

A group of HIV-negative adults aged 15 years and older (n=16,588) were also followed during the same time period. The effect of ART on the surrounding local community was assessed on the risk for HIV.

Researchers observed a crude incidence rate in HIV seroconversions of 2.63 per 100 person-years (95% CI, 2.5-2.77). In addition, the researchers detected a 1.7% decrease in HIV acquisition faced by an HIV-negative adult living in the surrounding community.

“These results clearly demonstrate that the rate of new HIV infections can be reduced as a result of high coverage of ART and this can be done in the real-world sub-Saharan African setting. This is the first evidence recorded to date in this type of setting,” Tanser said.

For more information:

• Tanser F. #136LB. Presented at: the 19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. March 5-8, 2012; Seattle.

Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.

To underscore the importance of rolling ART would have an impact beyond just mortality and morbidity related to HIV infection.

– James Hakim, MD

University of Zimbabwe College of Health Science