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AIDS 2016: Study Looks at Use of HIV PrEP Before and During Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) when it was offered as an additional tool for preventing HIV infection during the pre-conception period, pregnancy, and breastfeeding, according to study findings presented at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban and published in the July 19 online edition of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

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AIDS 2016: No New HIV Infections Seen in San Francisco's Strut PrEP Program

A community-based sexual health clinic in San Francisco has offered nurse-led pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services to more than 1200 clients and seen no HIV infections to date, according to a presentation last month at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban.

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Truvada PrEP for HIV Prevention Approved in European Union

The European Commission, which has authority over new drug in the European Union, has approved Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine) for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, Gilead Sciences announced this week. While this marketing authorization allows Truvada for PrEP to be sold throughout the EU, regulatory authorities in each country have the final say over whether to approve it and national health systems will decide whether to offer PrEP widely and pay for it.

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AIDS 2016: Efavirenz Appears Associated with Elevated Suicide Risk in START Trial

Participants in the START treatment-timing trial who took antiretroviral regimens containing efavirenz had an increased risk of suicidal and self-injuring behavior than those not using efavirenz, though the number of events was small and the effect was mainly seen among people with a prior psychiatric diagnosis, according to research presented at the 21st International AIDS Conference last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: New HIV Infections Have Stopped Declining Worldwide, Now Rising in Some Regions

After a decade of rapidly declining HIV incidence following the introduction of effective antiretroviral treatment, progress in reducing new infections has stalled worldwide and in some areas incidence has started to increase, according to a new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study presented at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban and published in the August 2016 edition of The Lancet HIV.

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AIDS 2016: International AIDS Society Releases New HIV Cure Research Strategy

The International AIDS Society (IAS) released an update to its strategy to guide HIV cure research. The strategy, authored by the leading researchers in the field, was published in the July 11 online edition of Nature Medicine and discussed at the IAS Towards an HIV Cure Symposium preceding the 21st International AIDS Conference last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: Infection Prophylaxis Reduces Risk of Death for People Starting HIV Treatment Late

A package of enhanced prophylaxis against infections significantly reduced the risk of death for adults and children with advanced HIV disease after starting antiretroviral treatment in a randomized study, James Hakim from the University of Zimbabwe reported at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban. Another analysis showed that intensifying treatment by adding raltegravir did not offer added benefits. 

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AIDS 2016: Seeking a Cure, Doctors Document Bone Marrow Transplant Recipients with HIV

The "Berlin patient," Timothy Ray Brown, has now survived 7 years off antiretroviral therapy (ART) with no sign of HIV reappearing in his body, and as time passes his position as "the person cured of HIV" becomes more secure. However, participants at the 2016 Towards a Cure Symposium, held in advance of the recent 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban, heard about the work of a consortium of physicians and researchers who are searching for, and documenting, the fates of patients with HIV who, like Brown, have been given stem cell transplants for cancer, in an effort to abolish Brown’s distinction as the only person to be cured of HIV.

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AIDS 2016: Mapping Local HIV Epidemics Can Help Target Resources to Areas with Greatest Need

Global health agencies have recently put a new emphasis on geography. UNAIDS has called for programs to focus on "location and population." PEPFAR (the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) says there is a "need to do the right things in the right places at the right time." The Global Fund believes there is a need to "target resources to areas with the greatest need." But how can these principles be applied in practice? Speakers at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban outlined examples of how maps and geographical analyses have helped improve HIV services in the U.S. and South Africa.

[Produced in collaboration with Aidsmap.com]

Mapping HIV in the U.S.

Travis Sanchez from Emory University in Atlanta introduced AIDSVu, a set of interactive, online maps that allows users to visually explore the HIV epidemic in the U.S. By making it readily accessible to policy-makers, it has been used to better target limited healthcare and HIV prevention resources.

For example, Sanchez showed maps of Chicago, showing rates of diagnosed HIV in different parts of the city, broken down by ethnic group. As expected, rates among black people are higher than among whites, and this is the case throughout the city. But the map highlighted some unexpected clusters of cases -- high rates among white people in some predominantly black zip codes in the city’s south-central area, as well as high rates among black people in some predominantly white zip codes in the northeast of the city.

In Philadelphia, health officials used HIV prevalence data at the census-tract level (the most detailed unit available, covering a neighborhood with a few thousand residents) in order to target door-to-door testing campaigns. "This is really about targeting local resources in the local communities that need them most," Sanchez said.

While mapping rural Alabama, it became clear that a number of counties with high rates of HIV were also designated as "Health Professional Shortage Areas." With HIV concentrated in deprived populations that have limited access to transportation to medical facilities further afield, there is a potential for people to drop out of care and have uncontrolled viral load. In response, health officials set up a telemedicine service so that primary care clinics in the underserved areas could be linked with medical providers elsewhere in Alabama. A web-based video link (a bit like a Skype call) allows patients to receive medical care and counseling at a distance. 

In Atlanta, the mapping demonstrated how HIV and poverty overlapped. Looking into the data in more detail, "hot spots" of poor linkage to care and low rates of viral suppression were identified. While some areas of high HIV prevalence were served by HIV treatment facilities, several other hot spots were far from medical facilities, with low rates of car ownership and poor public transportation links.

Sanchez said that mapping these relationships had been "transformational" in helping local officials identify the structural barriers to care and prepare the local Strategy to End AIDS. The plans place emphasis on creating patient-friendly systems that facilitate entry into care, including transportation support.

Mapping in South Africa

Frank Tanser from the Africa Centre for Population Heath has been intensively studying a rural, poor area of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. His mapping shows that HIV incidence, HIV prevalence, and deaths are far from evenly distributed, with all 3 highly concentrated in informal settlements and peri-urban areas bordering a major highway.

"I think these maps speak to the tyranny of averages," Tanser said. Rather than spreading healthcare resources evenly across all areas, there’s an opportunity to use this "incredible spatial heterogeneity" to focus investment on the most vulnerable populations and so bring epidemics under control, he said.

The maps have identified "hot spots" in which a significant proportion of people have uncontrolled HIV -- in some specific locations, more than 1 in 4 adults in the general population have a detectable viral load. Such communities may not only have a high burden of HIV themselves, but may also be driving onward transmission in the wider geographical area.

Phylogenetic analysis (examining the genetic links between HIV in different individuals) suggests that a high proportion of new infections in other communities can be linked back to individuals living in the "hot spot" communities beside the highway. Transportation and migration are likely to play an important part in this.

Targeting resources so as to improve the treatment cascade in these specific locations could have a disproportionate impact on the larger epidemic, Tanser suggested.

Overcoming Data Limitations

The examples presented at the conference depend on rich sources of data. AIDSVu links extensive data collected by American public health agencies with socioeconomic information from the U.S. census. The Africa Centre conducts intensive HIV surveillance activities within a 20 by 20 km area. How then can the approach be applied in settings where such resources are not available?

Tanser said that insights derived from studies, such as the relationship between distance to health facilities and HIV prevalence, would likely be applicable elsewhere. Other urban and peri-urban informal settlements in African countries are likely to be "hot spots." Those located near major transport routes are especially likely to contribute to new infections, but can also be easily reached by health providers.

One important gap in routinely collected data is that it rarely records details that would identify individuals as members of key populations, such as sex workers or people who inject drugs. As a result, key populations tend to be invisible in many spatial analyses although they may cluster in specific areas. Tanser said that there was potential to apply geographical analyses to key populations (using respondent-driven sampling) but that there could be sensitivities when mapping stigmatized and criminalized groups.

Closing the session, Gesine Meyer-Rath said that funders were often very interested in mapping, as targeting could mean that financial resources could be used more efficiently. This could be a way of justifying spending less. But she said that the same data could also be used by activists and members of affected communities to demand services where they really are needed.

8/23/16

References

Using Geospatial Analysis for Effective HIV Programming. 21st International AIDS Conference. Durban, July 18-22, 2016. Session THSY05.

T Sanchez. The direct programme impacts of publicly available tools to visualize spatial patterns in HIV infection in the United States: the AIDSVu experience. 21st International AIDS Conference. Durban, July 18-22, 2016. Presentation THSY0503.

F Tanser. Application of geospatial analyses to reveal targets for intervention: results from a population-based cohort in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. 21st International AIDS Conference. Durban, July 18-22, 2016. Presentation THSY0504.

AIDS 2016: Access to Home Testing Doubles Frequency of HIV Testing Among Australian Gay Men

A randomized trial conducted with Australian gay men has shown that easy access to self-testing kits can double the frequency with which men test for HIV, with an even greater increase among men who used to test infrequently, Muhammad Jamil of the Kirby Institute reported at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: Reducing Clinic Visits Supports Retention in HIV Care, African Studies Show

Interventions which reduce the need for people with HIV to attend clinics are proving highly successful in retaining people in care and supporting adherence to HIV medication in southern Africa, according to reports presented at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: HIV Viral Load Pilot Study Shows Roll-Out Will Depend on an Educated Workforce

For viral load testing to prevent HIV treatment failure, drug resistance, and onward transmission, treatment programs will need to invest in better record-keeping and clinic procedures, human resources, demand creation, and decentralization of second-line treatment provision, a large pilot study of viral load test provision in southern Africa has found. Findings were presented last month at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: Market Constraints and Uncertainties May Limit Scale-Up of HIV Self-Testing

There are 4 different HIV self-test products now manufactured and approved for sale in the U.S. and Europe, with a further 9 in the pipeline, but uncertainties about the level of demand and the prices that will be paid are limiting manufacturers’ interest in bringing products to market. Moreover, while self-testing may have the greatest potential in sub-Saharan Africa, the fragmented regulatory environment there could hamper scale-up in the region, Petra Stankard of Populations Services International said at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: HIV Criminalization on the Rise, Especially in Sub-Saharan Africa

Globally, 72 countries have adopted laws that specifically allow for HIV criminalization, either because the law is specific to HIV, or because it names HIV as one (or more) of the diseases covered by a broader law. This total increases to 101 jurisdictions when the HIV criminalization laws in 30 of the states that make up the U.S. are counted individually. The findings were presented at the Beyond Blame pre-conference held in advance of the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: New Strategy Aims to End AIDS in Children by 2020

A new strategy to end pediatric AIDS, launched last month at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) in Durban, calls for antiretroviral treatment services to reach 1.6 million children and 1.2 million adolescents by 2018. The "Super-Fast-Track" strategy is intended to close the gap between adult and pediatric treatment access, according to UNAIDS, and will pull together the actions of numerous agencies.

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Coverage of 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016)

HIVandHepatitis.com coverage of the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016), held July 18-22, in Durban, South Africa.

Conference highlights include PrEP and other biomedical HIV prevention, HIV cure research, experimental antiretroviral therapy, and access to treatment and prevention for key affected populations.

Full listing by topic

AIDS 2016 website

7/28/16

Most Contraceptives Not Linked to HIV Infection, but Depo-Provera May Raise Risk

Birth control pills and some types of injectable and implanted contraceptives were not associated with an increased risk of HIV acquisition in an updated meta-analysis that included several recent studies, researchers reported in the August 5 online edition of AIDS. However, evidence continues to suggest that use of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA or Depo-Provera) raises the likelihood of HIV infection. The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to meet soon to assess whether guidance needs to change in the light of the new findings.

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AIDS 2016: START Analysis Looks at Who Benefits Most from Immediate HIV Treatment

Starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) soon after HIV diagnosis led to better outcomes than delayed treatment in all population subgroups in the START trial, researchers reported at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last week in Durban. But some people saw greater risk reductions, including those over age 50, those with a lower CD4:CD8 ratio and higher viral load, and those with cardiovascular risk factors.

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AIDS 2016: Vaginal Bacteria May Increase HIV Susceptibility and Reduce PrEP Effectiveness

Overgrowth of a certain species of vaginal bacteria was associated with a 13-fold higher likelihood of becoming infected with HIV, while another species was found to lower tenofovir levels and may contribute to reduced efficacy of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) delivered in a vaginal gel, according to a set of presentations at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last month in Durban.

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AIDS 2016: Starting Treatment on the Day of HIV Diagnosis Improves Outcomes

Interventions to improve linkage to HIV care and retention in treatment which speed up the start of antiretroviral therapy (ART) or provide intensive support to people before starting treatment produce better retention than standard practices, researchers reported at the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) last week in Durban.

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