The HepHIV 2017 Conference in Malta: joining forces for the earlier diagnosis of HIV and viral hepatitis.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of the article is to provide an overview of the results of the HepHIV 2017 Conference organized by the HIV in Europe initiative under the Maltese EU Presidency in January 2017. METHODS: A thourough review of all conference presentations (oral and poster presentations) was performed to retrieve the key outcomes of the conference. RESULTS: The key result from the conference was a call to action summarising key priorities in HIV and viral hepatitis testing and linkage to care. This included improving monitoring of viral hepatitis and HIV, mixing testing strategies and ensuring policy support. The important contribution and outcomes of EU funded projects OptTEST and EuroHIVEdat was highlighted. CONCLUSION: An integrated approach to earlier testing and linkage to care across diseases is needed in Europe and the HepHIV conferences create an important forum to reach this aim.

Evaluation of HIV testing recommendations in specialty guidelines for the management of HIV indicator conditions.

OBJECTIVES: European guidelines recommend HIV testing for individuals presenting with indicator conditions (ICs) including AIDS-defining conditions (ADCs). The extent to which non-HIV specialty guidelines recommend HIV testing in ICs and ADCs is unknown. Our aim was to pilot a methodology in the UK to review specialty guidelines and ascertain if HIV was discussed and testing recommended. METHODS: UK and European HIV testing guidelines were reviewed to produce a list of 25 ADCs and 49 ICs. UK guidelines for these conditions were identified from searches of the websites of specialist societies, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) website, the NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) website, the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidance Network (SIGN) website and the British Medical Journal Best Practice database and from Google searches. RESULTS: We identified guidelines for 12 of 25 ADCs (48%) and 36 of 49 (73%) ICs. In total, 78 guidelines were reviewed (range 0-13 per condition). HIV testing was recommended in six of 17 ADC guidelines (35%) and 24 of 61 IC guidelines (39%). At least one guideline recommended HIV testing for six of 25 ADCs (24%) and 16 of 49 ICs (33%). There was no association between recommendation to test and publication year (P = 0.62). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of guidelines for ICs do not recommend testing. Clinicians managing ICs may be unaware of recommendations produced by HIV societies or the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV infection among these patients. We are piloting methods to engage with guideline development groups to ensure that patients diagnosed with ICs/ADCs are tested for HIV. We then plan to apply our methodology in other European settings as part of the Optimising Testing and Linkage to Care for HIV across Europe (OptTEST) project.