Friday, May 1, 2009

HSV-2 suppression to reduce HIV transmission among partners


via IRMA member Rober Reinhard:

An interesting paper was published today about HSV-2 suppression to reduce HIV transmission among partners, describing the largest cohort of serodiscordant couples ever organized. It also contains an important explanation of the differences between reducing "transmission" and reducing "acquisition" that affect understanding of the "ACE" prevention study results. An amazing effort which also looked at anal sex practices. The cohort however recruited only heterosexual couples, no doubt because of important design, biology andlogistic reasons but that points to more efforts that could be made to recruit MSM partner cohorts. Some attempts of course have already been made but if you look down the line to what could be learned from this cohort it has ancillary studies potential that could be helpful for microbicides.
"Characteristics of HIV-1 Discordant Couples Enrolled in a Trial of HSV-2 Suppression to Reduce HIV-1 Transmission: The Partners Study"

Click here to read the full paper on PloS Hub for Clinical Trials.

The Partners HSV-2/HIV-1 Transmission Study (Partners Study) is a phase III, placebo-controlled trial of daily acyclovir for genital herpes (HSV-2) suppression among HIV-1/HSV-2 co-infected persons to reduce HIV-1 transmission to their HIV-1 susceptible partners, which requires recruitment of HIV-1 serodiscordant heterosexual couples. We describe the baseline characteristics of this cohort.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...