Treatment as Prevention: How Close to Zero Risk Is It?

The transmission risk is very low for HIV-infected individuals after 6 months of ART, but excluding a risk below 1 per 100,000 condomless sex acts will be difficult.

Effective combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) protects the health of HIV-infected individuals and greatly decreases the risk for transmitting the virus to sexual partners. The PARTNER study recently reported zero transmissions over an estimated 44,400 condom-unprotected sex acts involving serodiscordant heterosexual and same-sex couples in which the HIV-infected partner was virologically suppressed. Now, researchers have analyzed data on heterosexual couples from this study and six others to estimate the risk for transmission from an infected partner on ART for >6 months — the period generally needed to achieve virologic suppression.

Using Bayesian modeling, the researchers estimated the transmission risk per condomless sex act for two …

Reviewing Author

Keith Henry, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardViiV Advisory Board

Editorial BoardsJAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes

Keith Henry, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardViiV Advisory Board

Editorial BoardsJAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes

Treatment as Prevention: How Close to Zero Risk Is It?

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Reviewing Author