- World’s largest study of HIV-positive people who had unprotected sex with HIV-negative partner reveals antiretroviral drugs do stop transmission
- Treatment works by keeping level of HIV in a person’s bloodstream low
- Allows the immune system to recover and remain strong
- Maintaining a low viral load – amount of HIV in the blood – is also crucial to stopping transmission of the virus to sexual partners
Lizzie Parry For Dailymail.com
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Prescribing HIV drugs to gay men and heterosexuals does stop them transmitting the virus to their partner, new evidence has confirmed.
Antiretroviral treatment works by keeping the level of HIV in a person’s bloodstream – their viral load – low.
This allows the immune system to recover and remain strong.
Maintaining a low viral load is also crucial to stopping transmission of the virus to sexual partners.
Now, the PARTNER study – the world’s largest study of HIV-positive people who have had unprotected, condomless sex, with their HIV-negative partners, has added to a growing body of evidence that the treatment is vital.
Prescribing antiretroviral HIV drugs to gay men and heterosexuals when they are diagnosed with the virus does stop them transmitting the disease to their partner, new evidence has confirmed
Professor Jens Lundgren from Rigshospitalet, senior author of the study, said: ‘The results clearly show that early diagnosis of HIV and access to effective treatment are crucial for reducing the number of new HIV cases.
‘As soon as a patient with HIV is on treatment with a suppressed viral load, the risk of transmission becomes minimal.’
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Researchers from the University of Liverpool, University College London, the Royal Free NHS and Rigshospitalet, one of the largest hospitals in Denmark, worked on the study.
They monitored 888 couples from 14 different European countries, in which one of the partners was on effective treatment for HIV.
Of the 888 couples, 548 were heterosexual and 340 were gay men.
All had sex regularly without using a condom.
The couples have now been monitored for several years and not one instance of transmission of the virus has been recorded.
In the period following the study, a total of 11 HIV-negative partners were infected with HIV.
Led by Professor Anna Maria Geretti, researchers from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection and Global Health undertook phylogenetic analyses of the 11 new HIV cases and their partners’ virus.
Antiretroviral treatment works by keeping the level of HIV in a person’s bloodstream – their viral load – low. This allows the immune system to recover and remain strong. Maintaining a low viral load is also crucial to stopping transmission of the virus to sexual partners. Pictured, the virus under the microscope
Professor Geretti, said: ‘The HIV virus can be divided into several sub-groups, each with its own genetic characteristics, and this makes it possible to see whether the virus is genetically similar to a partner’s.
‘In all cases the results showed that the virus came from someone other than the partner under treatment.
‘This research is vital for us to gain an even better understanding the risks associated with this particular virus.’
Gay couples in the study will continue to be monitored for three more years to obtain even more data in this area for anal sex.
The results of the second part of the PARTNER study, which will only monitor gay men, are expected in 2018.
The study, which was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and sponsored by UCL, are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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