Expanding HIV Testing and Treatment

The implicit theme of the 2010 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was “test and treat.” On the surface, this strategy sounds straightforward: Test everyone, and provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) to those who are infected with HIV. But, of course, the devil is in the details.

The good news is that ART use has been expanding at an unprecedented rate: More than 4 million people in low- and middle-income countries are now receiving treatment, an achievement that seemed unreachable less than a decade ago. However, 2.7 million new infections still occur each year and, for every person who starts therapy, 2.5 get infected. Clearly, reducing HIV transmission through greater ART expansion might not be so simple. Neverth…