Media advice

Thursday, April 8, 2021

What

The COVID-19 pandemic affects people living with or at risk for HIV, both indirectly, by disrupting HIV treatment and prevention services, and directly by endangering individual health. An effective response to these dual pandemics requires unprecedented collaboration to accelerate basic and clinical research, as well as implementation science to quickly introduce evidence-based strategies into practice. This post is from a review article co-authored by Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

By disrupting critical healthcare, the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the substantial progress that has been made in reducing the global burden of HIV. The authors note that COVID-19’s toll in the HIV pandemic could be mitigated by increasing access to HIV treatment, such as prescribing medication for several months and ensuring HIV testing and prevention services are maintained .

Many questions remain about whether people with HIV are more at risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and of developing severe COVID-19, as the evidence so far is mixed. is. The rate of infection with SARS-CoV-2 is comparable in people with and without HIV. However, populations disproportionately affected by HIV – including black / African American and Hispanic / Latinx populations – are also at increased risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 infection and developing severe COVID-19. Multiple factors contribute to the burden on these populations, including systemic health inequalities, socio-economic inequalities and a higher prevalence of co-morbidities.

Although HIV infection itself does not appear to increase the risk of severe COVID-19, growing evidence suggests that specific co-morbidities in people with HIV are associated with greater severity of COVID-19. Even when HIV is well controlled with treatment, people with HIV carry a significant burden of numerous co-morbidities, many of which have also been identified as risk factors for severe COVID-19. These comorbidities include certain cancers, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

Accelerated development and clinical testing of prevention and treatment strategies are urgently needed to reduce the juxtaposition of the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics, the authors conclude. This includes basic research on the interactions between HIV and SARS-CoV-2 at both the cellular and molecular levels, as well as clinical studies to evaluate the outcomes for people with HIV and co-infections with SARS-CoV-2, including the impact of co-morbidity . .

Article

RW Eisinger, AM Lerner and AS Fauci. HIV / AIDS in the Age of COVID-19: A Juxtaposition of Two Pandemics. Journal of Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1093 / infdis / jiab114 (2021).

WHO

NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD, is available for comment.

NIAID conducts and supports research – at NIH, in the United States and worldwide – to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases and to develop better means to prevent, diagnose and treat these diseases. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related material are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the national medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the premier federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

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