Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Sep;11(8):502-9.
doi: 10.1111/j.1468-1293.2009.00818.x. Epub 2010 Mar 1.

Sexually transmitted infections and infectiousness beliefs among people living with HIV/AIDS: implications for HIV treatment as prevention

S C Kalichman  1 , L Eaton, C Cherry
Affiliations

Sexually transmitted infections and infectiousness beliefs among people living with HIV/AIDS: implications for HIV treatment as prevention

S C Kalichman et al. HIV Med. 2010 Sep.

Abstract

Objectives: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) significantly impact the health of people living with HIV/AIDS, increasing HIV infectiousness and therefore transmissibility. The current study examined STIs in a community sample of 490 HIV-positive men and women.

Methods: Assessments were performed using confidential computerized interviews in a community research setting.

Results: Fourteen per cent of the people living with HIV/AIDS in this study had been diagnosed with a new STI in a 6-month period. Individuals with a new STI had significantly more sexual partners in that time period, including non-HIV-positive partners. Participants who had contracted an STI were significantly more likely to have detectable viral loads and were less likely to know their viral load than participants who did not contract an STI. Multivariate analysis showed that believing an undetectable viral load leads to lower infectiousness was associated with contracting a new STI.

Conclusions: Individuals who believed that having an undetectable viral load reduces HIV transmission risks were more likely to be infectious because of STI coinfection. Programmes that aim to use HIV treatment for HIV prevention must address infectiousness beliefs and aggressively control STIs among people living with HIV/AIDS.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Crepaz N, Hart T, Marks G. Highly active antiretroviral therapy and high risk sexual behavior: A Meta-analytic review. JAMA. 2004;292:224–236. - PubMed
    1. Pilcher CD, et al. Brief but efficient: acute HIV infection and the sexual transmission of HIV. J Infect Dis. 2004;189(10):1785–1792. - PubMed
    1. Pilcher CD, et al. Approaching “HIV elimination”: interventions for acute HIV infection. Current HIV/AIDS Reports. 2006;3:160–168. - PubMed
    1. Kerndt PR, et al. Strategies Used in the Detection of Acute/Early HIV Infections. The NIMH Multisite Acute HIV Infection Study: I AIDS Behav. 2009 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pinkerton SD. Probability of HIV transmission during acute infection in Rakai, Uganda. AIDS Behav. 2008;12(5):677–84. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms