Krishen Samuel

An impressive 79% reduction in HIV incidence was seen between two directly comparable groups in a whole-population analysis from Australia, presented to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) this week by Dr Nicholas Medland. People who have received hepatitis C treatment and who were not adherent to PrEP were particularly vulnerable to acquiring HIV within a few years of receiving their first PrEP prescription.

Lifetime risk of acquiring HIV has decreased for Black gay and bisexual men in the US, from 1 in 2 from 2010 to 2014 to 1 in 3 from 2017 to 2021, according to data presented to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week.

Men in sub-Saharan Africa are much more likely to have advanced HIV disease –including large numbers who have a low CD4 count despite taking treatment and being virally suppressed. It remains crucial to monitor CD4 count, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) study of 12 countries presented to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) by Dr Dominik Stelzle in Denver earlier this month.

People with HIV aged 65 and older were more likely to be prescribed opioids and be diagnosed with opioid use disorder than HIV-negative older adults in the US, according to data presented by Dr Stephanie Shiau to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) in Denver recently.

While there have been reductions in the rates of most major causes of death among people with HIV in North America and Europe since 1996, people who inject drugs – particularly women – remain vulnerable to early death. Background Before 1996 – when combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) became the mainstay of HIV treatment – death from AIDS was a near inevitability, even in high-income countries. Due to ART’s high effectiveness at suppressing HIV, AIDS-related deaths have declined steeply, par…

The proportion of Black African women diagnosed with HIV increased between 2017 and 2021 in England, while the proportion of new diagnoses among White men dropped by 20%. Over this period, the proportion of PrEP users who were women, including Black African women, fell. Thus, when comparing Black African women to White men, and women to men, PrEP inequities have increased substantially, despite wider PrEP accessibility.

Gay and bisexual men living in sub-Saharan countries where homosexuality is legal were twice as likely to have ever tested for HIV compared to those where homosexuality is illegal. Targeted HIV policies for this key population were associated with a more than two-fold increase in HIV testing, compared to countries with no such policies.

Transgender men in France had to make a case for why they needed PrEP, by distinguishing their needs from cisgender gay men. There was often a feeling that they did not fit neatly into a box regarding who can benefit from taking PrEP, according to recent qualitative research.

While Chinese gay and bisexual men living with HIV experienced the negative impacts of their intersecting identities – especially when it came to stigma – they also described how their identities enabled them to thrive in ways they hadn’t expected, according to a recent qualitative study.

Taking the antibiotic doxycycline after sex works well to prevent syphilis and chlamydia for gay and bisexual men, and trans women.