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Clinical studies suggest that antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces the risk of HIV transmission, although at least one case report suggests transmission can still occur even with a suppressed viral load (JW AIDS Clin Care Sep 22 2008). To explore this issue further, investigators reviewed data from 11 longitudinal studies involving 5021 serodiscordant heterosexual couples. Only five of the studies included patients receiving ART.
The rate of HIV transmission per 100 person-years was 0.46 among patients on ART (5 events during 1098 person-years) and 5.64 among patients not on ART (456 events during 9998 person-years). In an analysis limited to patients with viral loads <400 copies/mL, the rate of transmission per 100 person-years was zero amo…