Age and gender profiles of HIV infection burden and viraemia: novel metrics for HIV epidemic control in African populations with high antiretroviral therapy coverage.
medRxiv
; 2024 Apr 22.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38712115
ABSTRACT
Introduction:
To prioritize and tailor interventions for ending AIDS by 2030 in Africa, it is important to characterize the population groups in which HIV viraemia is concentrating.Methods:
We analysed HIV testing and viral load data collected between 2013-2019 from the open, population-based Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS) in Uganda, to estimate HIV seroprevalence and population viral suppression over time by gender, one-year age bands and residence in inland and fishing communities. All estimates were standardized to the underlying source population using census data. We then assessed 95-95-95 targets in their ability to identify the populations in which viraemia concentrates.Results:
Following the implementation of Universal Test and Treat, the proportion of individuals with viraemia decreased from 4.9% (4.6%-5.3%) in 2013 to 1.9% (1.7%-2.2%) in 2019 in inland communities and from 19.1% (18.0%-20.4%) in 2013 to 4.7% (4.0%-5.5%) in 2019 in fishing communities. Viraemia did not concentrate in the age and gender groups furthest from achieving 95-95-95 targets. Instead, in both inland and fishing communities, women aged 25-29 and men aged 30-34 were the 5-year age groups that contributed most to population-level viraemia in 2019, despite these groups being close to or had already achieved 95-95-95 targets.Conclusions:
The 95-95-95 targets provide a useful benchmark for monitoring progress towards HIV epidemic control, but do not contextualize underlying population structures and so may direct interventions towards groups that represent a marginal fraction of the population with viraemia.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
MedRxiv
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United kingdom