Dr Michael Seah
Clinical posts from members and guests of the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) from various international medical and scientific conferences on HIV, AIDS, viral hepatitis, and sexual health.
Fascinating presentations on the role of early ART treatment, T cell and tissue reservoirs for HIV, and the role of inflammation in HIV infection
Katherine Luzuriaga presented data showing that early cART (initiation before 6 weeks of age) leads to a restricted latent reservoir of HIV, and although the reservoir decays over 2 years, HIV remains detectable. There continues to be a 4-12 fold reduction in this latent HIV reservoir from 2 years through 14-18 years of age. Abstract #53
Early effective cART in infants leads to:
- clearance of HIV specific antibodies
- durable HIV RNA suppression
- markedly reduced HIV related mortality
- preservation of immune function
- lack of viral evolution over time in replication competent virus
- reduced HIV infection of long-lived CD4+ T CM cells
The use of early ART does not distract from the need to focus on preventing HIV transmission (viz. there were 260,000 new infant infections worldwide in 2012)