Researchers at Georgia State University and the University at Albany-SUNY say HIV infections could be reduced by 67 percent if high-risk populations are targeted with aggressive prevention and treatment. The results are published in the journal AIDS and Behavior.
The U.S. government recently announced a new goal to reduce new HIV infections by 90 percent in the next decade, and while the Georgia-Albany study indicates that figure will be hard to meet, the researchers do believe new HIV infections can be reduced significantly using new models of care delivery for people with HIV and prevention interventions, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for high-risk populations, and enough funding to bring them to scale.
Looking at HIV surveillance data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the research team estimated the number of new HIV infections that could be avoided by employing “ambitious, but attainable, national HIV prevention goals” said meeting current global targets for HIV diagnosis and care by 2025 and preventing an additional 20 percent of transmissions would eliminate HIV infections significantly in the next decade.
However, this would require patients diagnosed and receiving treatment to change from under 70 percent to 95 percent in six years. Success would also require another 40 percent PrEP coverage among people at risk for HIV. This means focusing efforts strongly on key minority and high-risk groups, an effort in which the U.S. has not been very successful in recent years.
