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An end to the Aids epidemic could be in sight after a landmark study found men whose HIV infection was fully suppressed by antiretroviral drugs had no chance of infecting their partner.
The success of the medicine means that if everyone with HIV were fully treated, there would be no further infections.
Among nearly 1,000 male couples across Europe where one partner with HIV was receiving treatment to suppress the virus, there were no cases of transmission of the infection to the HIV-negative partner during sex without a condom. Although 15 men were infected with HIV during the eight-year study, DNA testing proved that was through sex with someone other than their partner who was not on treatment.
“It’s brilliant – fantastic. This very much puts this issue to bed,” said Prof Alison Rodgers from University College London, the co-leader of the paper published in the Lancet medical journal. Earlier studies have also shown the treatment protects heterosexual couples where one partner has HIV.
She added: “Our findings provide conclusive evidence for gay men that the risk of HIV transmission with suppressive ART [antiretroviral therapy] is zero. Our findings support the message of the international U=U campaign that an undetectable viral load makes HIV untransmittable.
“This powerful message can help end the HIV pandemic by preventing HIV transmission, and tackling the stigma and discrimination that many people with HIV face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @12:12AM (7 children)
Baseline:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21767103 [nih.gov]
This study:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30418-0/fulltext [thelancet.com]
So they improved from ~1 transmission per 100 person-years to ~1 transmission per 100 person-years (I assume a person-year is the same as couple-year). Great job.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 06 2019, @02:42AM (1 child)
Wouldn't a person-year be half of a couple-year?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @02:51AM
I don't think so, since half the couple is already testing positive to begin with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:06AM (2 children)
Wow, you didn't even finish that sentence, let alone paragraph:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:09AM (1 child)
Your point? I compared two comparable numbers, you want me to compare some post-hoc shit they dredged up that is not comparable to the other number.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:17AM
Totally worthless critiques are actually a huge problem with bio research. It stems from the fact they NEVER make real predictions in one paper that is later tested in another paper to support of their theories. As a result, everything is up in the air.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @08:26AM (1 child)
The abstract of the previous study (HPTN 052) continues: "[...]a total of 39 HIV-1 transmissions were observed (incidence rate, 1.2 per 100 person-years; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.9 to 1.7); of these, 28 were virologically linked to the infected partner (incidence rate, 0.9 per 100 person-years, 95% CI, 0.6 to 1.3). Of the 28 linked transmissions, only 1 occurred in the early-therapy group (hazard ratio, 0.04; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.27; P0.001)."
The abstract of the new (PARTNER2) study says "15 new HIV infections occurred during eligible couple-years of follow-up, but none were phylogenetically linked within-couple transmissions, resulting in an HIV transmission rate of zero (upper 95% CI 0·23 per 100 couple-years of follow-up)."
Emphasis is rightly being placed upon the absence of linked transmissions, rather than the presence of non-linked transmissions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @04:16PM
How do they determine these linkages? What is the accuracy of this process and how did they determine that?
Closest I saw is: