Towards hepatitis C elimination in France: Scanvir, an effective model to test and treat drug users on dedicated days.

According to the French recommendations, the elimination of the hepatitis C virus by 2025 could be a realistic public health goal. Screening policies are being intensified, and access to treatment is promoted for patients who escape the usual care pathway. The 'Scanvir' program is an original strategy based on dedicated screening days, as part of the 'test, treat and cure HCV' event in addiction care centers in a French region, during which innovative screening technologies (RDTs, FibroScan® and point-of-care HCV RNA testing) are brought on site and access to a multidisciplinary team is offered. A total of 392 patients attended the 67 regional Scanvir sessions: 31.6% were HCV Ab-positive and 66% of them were HCV RNA-positive. Treatment was initiated in 79.3% of the patients. RDTs were accepted by 62% of the PWIDs (including those who already knew their status) and FibroScan® by 99.5% of the patients. 80% of the viremic patients started their treatment on site and are now cured or still under treatment. Advanced fibrosis evaluated by FibroScan® (LSM > 8 KPa) was suspected in 13.4% and 14.1% of the global and the HCV population, respectively. Scanvir is an efficient strategy for HCV elimination based on dedicated days aimed at increasing cost-effectiveness and offering a multidisciplinary service while saving human care resources. It is an exportable strategy that also offers comprehensive screening of associated chronic liver diseases via the elastometry device and interviews.

HIV-2 Primary Infection in a French 69-Year-Old Bisexual Man.

More than 1 million individuals, mainly in West Africa, are thought to be infected with HIV-2. Acute HIV-2 infection is rarely observed, only 2 primary infections have been described to date. We report a detailed case of HIV-2 primary infection in a 69-year-old French bisexual Caucasian man, thereby providing valuable insights into HIV-2 early infection.

Virological response and resistance profiles after 24 months of first-line antiretroviral treatment in adults living in Bangui, Central African Republic.

The rate of virological failure was assessed in 386 adult patients attending the Centre National Hospitalier Universitaire of Bangui, the capital city of the Central African Republic (CAR), receiving their first-line antiretroviral (ARV) drug regimen for 24 months, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. In addition, genotypic resistance testing was carried out in 45 of 145 randomly selected patients whose plasma HIV-1 RNA load was detectable. Overall, 28.5% of ARV-treated patients were in virological failure (e.g., HIV-1 RNA >3.7 log(10) copies/ml). Twenty-four percent of patients in virological failure showed wild-type viruses, likely indicating poor adherence. Even after excluding the M184V mutation, all 76% of patients in virological failure displayed viruses harboring at least one major drug resistance mutation to nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI), non-NRTI, or protease inhibitors. Whereas the second-line regimen proposed by the 2010 WHO recommendations, including zidovudine, tenofovir, lopinavir, and atazanavir, could be effective in more than 90% of patients in virological failure with resistant viruses, the remaining patients showed genotypic profiles highly predictive of resistance to the usual WHO second-line regimen, including complex genotypic profiles diagnosed only by genotypic resistance tests in some patients. In conclusion, our observations highlight the high frequency of therapeutic failure in ARV-treated adults in this study, as well as the urgent and absolute need for improving viral load assessment in the CAR to prevent and/or, from now on, to monitor therapeutic failure.

Effect of HIV infection on the course of syphilis.

Syphilis has been a public health problem for centuries. Syphilis and HIV form a dangerous combination: syphilis significantly increases the risk of contracting HIV infection, and HIV can alter the natural course of syphilis. Despite a better understanding of the interaction between these two diseases, many controversies persist. The incidence of syphilis has increased among HIV-infected patients both in Europe and in the USA, and especially in the homosexual/bisexual transmission group. We discuss the interaction between HIV/AIDS and syphilis in a review of the most recent literature, focusing particularly on the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of HIV-infected patients with syphilis. Early diagnosis of syphilis in HIV-infected patients requires awareness among both patients and clinicians. Early treatment of syphilis is crucial as it reduces the risk of transmission.

Differential impact of combination antiretroviral therapy in preventing Kaposi's sarcoma with and without visceral involvement.

PURPOSE: To study the impact of different potent combined antiretroviral treatment (cART) on the incidence of HIV-associated Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) with and without visceral involvement. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients were selected from the French Hospital Database on HIV, a large hospital cohort. The risk of KS was estimated by using Cox proportional hazards models adjusting for age, the CD4 cell nadir, the HIV exposure category, prior AIDS, cART, and the type of cART regimen. cART regimens were distinguished according to whether they contained protease inhibitor (PI), non-nucleoside analog (NNRTI), both, or only nucleoside analog (NRTI). Separate analyzes were conducted according to the initial visceral involvement of KS. RESULTS: Among the 54,999 patients included in this study (182,756 person-years of follow-up), 1,634 patients were diagnosed with KS during follow-up, of whom 421 had visceral involvement at diagnosis. The KS incidence rate fell from 32 per 1,000 person-years in 1993 to 1994 to 3 per 1,000 person-years after 1999. PI-containing and NNRTI-containing cART regimens were associated with similar reductions in the risk of KS (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95%CI, 0.61 to 0.75; HR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.71, respectively). The risk of visceral KS fell more strongly than the risk of cutaneous KS (> 50% and < 30%, respectively). CONCLUSION: The incidence of KS, and especially visceral KS, has fallen sharply since the advent of cART. This effect is likely due to immune restoration rather than to a specific effect on the tumoral process, as PI-containing and NNRTI-containing regimens had similar preventive efficacy.

Two case reports of symptomatic visceral leishmaniasis in AIDS patients concomitant with immune reconstitution due to antiretroviral therapy.

We report the first 2 cases of visceral leishmaniasis in AIDS patients, which ocurred a few d after initiating antiretroviral therapy. The report raises the question whether a rapid immune reconstitution may convert a latent visceral leishmaniasis into a symptomatic one.

High variability of plasma drug concentrations in dual protease inhibitor regimens.

Ritonavir (RTV) strongly increases the concentrations of protease inhibitors (PIs) in plasma in patients given a combination of RTV and another PI. This pharmacological interaction is complex and poorly characterized and shows marked inter- and intraindividual variations. In addition, RTV interacts differently with saquinavir (SQV), indinavir (IDV), amprenavir (APV), and lopinavir (LPV). In this retrospective study on 542 human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients, we compared inter- and intraindividual variability of plasma PI concentrations and correlations between the C(min) (minimum concentration of drug in plasma) values for RTV and the coadministered PI C(min) values. Mean RTV C(min)s are significantly lower in patients receiving combinations containing APV or LPV than in combinations with SQV or IDV. With the most common PI dose regimens (600 mg of IDV twice a day [BID], 800 mg of SQV BID, and 400 mg of LPV BID), the interindividual C(min) variability of patients treated with a PI and RTV seemed to be lower with APV and LPV than with IDV and SQV. As regards intraindividual variability, APV also differed from the other PIs, exhibiting lower C(min) variability than with the other combinations. Significant positive correlations between RTV C(min) and boosted PI C(min) were observed with IDV, SQV, and LPV, but not with APV. Individual dose adjustments must take into account the specificity the pharmacological interaction of each RTV/PI combination and the large inter- and intraindividual variability of plasma PI levels to avoid suboptimal plasma drug concentrations which may lead to treatment failure and too high concentrations which may induce toxicity and therefore reduce patient compliance.