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 More than 1,000 Kenyan and Ugandan couples took part in the two-year
project where the HIV positive partner, two-thirds of whom were
women, took antiretroviral therapy (ARV) and the HIV negative one
took pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
"HIV was virtually eliminated in this population," the lead
researcher, Jared Baeten of the University of Washington, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
"More than 95 percent of the HIV infections that we expected to see,
we did not see."
The results were announced on Tuesday at the Durban International
AIDS Conference in South Africa, where delegates are discussing the
U.N. target of ending AIDS as a global health crisis by 2030.
South Africa has the world's largest population of people living
with HIV, accounting for 6.8 million of the 36.7 million infected
globally.
Baeten said the study was good news for serodiscordant couples -
where one partner is HIV positive and the other HIV negative - who
want to have children.
Public health facilities can offer generic versions of PrEP for $100
a year or less, he said.
In the study, the HIV negative person was offered PrEP, a once-a-day
pill that works to stop HIV reproducing in the body, until their
partner had taken ARVs for six months to reduce their viral load and
the risk of transmission.
"Couples really value something like this because it's important for
maintaining their relationship, for maintaining their family,"
Baeten said.
"PrEP offers a really potent, usable, deliverable HIV prevention
strategy ... PrEP has to be part of the puzzle for ending HIV."
FREE MEDICATION
The use of PrEP among high risk groups, like gay men, is increasing
in the United States, leading to a fall in HIV rates in San
Francisco, which has a large gay population, Baeten said.
Kenya and South Africa are among seven countries globally to have
approved PrEP, Chris Beyrer, president of the International AIDS
Society, said in a pre-conference briefing.
"(We are) really going to focus on the affordability and access to
PrEP and, we hope, really begin a PrEP access era globally," he
said.
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Kenya announced on Friday that it will offer free PrEP to high risk
groups, such as serodiscordant couples, as well as ARVs to everyone
who is diagnosed positive.
Married couples account for 44 percent of new infections in Kenya,
which has 1.5 million people living with HIV, government data shows.
The United Nations is trying to increase the number of people who
are tested, diagnosed and treated with ARVs to reverse the pandemic.
Less than half of people with HIV globally are on treatment, it
says. Many do not know they are infected.
Although the World Health Organization recommends everyone with HIV
should be given ARVs as soon as possible after diagnosis, many are
reluctant to start medication.
"People want to delay the process," said Elizabeth Bukusi, chief
research officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute's Center
for Microbiology Research, which was involved in the study.
"For someone who has no symptoms, there is nothing they are
responding to."
PrEP can act as a useful bridge for the HIV negative person to
protect themselves as they wait for their partner to start
treatment, she said.
(Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by xx; Please credit the Thomson
Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that
covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property
rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more
stories.)
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