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
Multicenter Study
. 2022 Jul 1;90(3):249-255.
doi: 10.1097/QAI.0000000000002943.

SARS-CoV-2 Testing and Positivity Among Persons With and Without HIV in 6 US Cohorts

Lesley S Park  1 , Kathleen A McGinnis  2 , Kirsha S Gordon  2   3 , Amy C Justice  2   3   4 , Wendy Leyden  5 , Michael J Silverberg  5 , Jacek Skarbinski  5 , Celeena Jefferson  6 , Michael Horberg  6 , Julia Certa  6 , Sonia Napravnik  7 , Jessie K Edwards  7 , Daniel Westreich  7 , Lisa Bastarache  8 , Srushti Gangireddy  8 , Lorie Benning  9 , Gypsyamber D'Souza  9 , Carolyn Williams  10 , Keri N Althoff  9 ; CIVET Collaboration of the NA-ACCORD of IeDEA
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

SARS-CoV-2 Testing and Positivity Among Persons With and Without HIV in 6 US Cohorts

Lesley S Park et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. .

Abstract

Background: It is not definitively known if persons with HIV (PWH) are more likely to be SARS-CoV-2 tested or test positive than persons without HIV (PWoH). We describe SARS-CoV-2 testing and positivity in 6 large geographically and demographically diverse cohorts of PWH and PWoH in the United States.

Setting: The Corona Infectious Virus Epidemiology Team comprises 5 clinical cohorts within a health system (Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, CA; Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States, Rockville, MD; University of North Carolina Health, Chapel Hill, NC; Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN; and Veterans Aging Cohort Study) and 1 interval cohort (Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study/Women's Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study).

Methods: We calculated the proportion of patients SARS-CoV-2 tested and the test positivity proportion by HIV status from March 1 to December 31, 2020.

Results: The cohorts ranged in size from 1675 to 31,304 PWH and 1430 to 3,742,604 PWoH. The proportion of PWH who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 (19.6%-40.5% across sites) was significantly higher than PWoH (14.8%-29.4%) in the clinical cohorts. However, among those tested, the proportion of patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 tests was comparable by HIV status; the difference in proportion of SARS-CoV-2 positivity ranged from 4.7% lower to 1.4% higher.

Conclusions: Although PWH had higher testing proportions compared with PWoH, we did not find evidence of increased positivity in 6 large, diverse populations across the United States. Ongoing monitoring of testing, positivity, and COVID-19-related outcomes in PWH are needed, given availability, response, and durability of COVID-19 vaccines; emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants; and latest therapeutic options.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

M. J. Silverberg has received research funding from Gilead Sciences, Inc. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Proportion SARS CoV-2 RT-PCR tested at least once from March 1-December 31, 2020 by HIV status*
Bars represent the proportion tested across the 6 cohorts by HIV status. Red bars represent persons with HIV (PWH), and blue bars represent persons without HIV (PWoH). *χ2 p-values <0.001 for differences in proportions for cohorts 1-5, p=0.835 for cohort 6. † Cohort 6 used a validated self-reported cohort survey to determine testing status and reported results through September 30, 2020. Abbreviations: PWH= Persons with HIV; PWoH= Persons without HIV
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Proportion SARS CoV-2 RT-PCR positive from March 1-December 31, 2020 in 6 cohorts in the United States
Lines represent the proportion positive monthly across the 6 cohorts by HIV status. Solid lines represent persons with HIV (PWH), and dashed lines represent persons without HIV (PWoH). Proportion positive is the proportion of RT-PCR results with detectable SARS-CoV-2 among those tested by SARS-CoV2 RT-PCR. Cohort 6 used a validated self-reported cohort survey to determine testing status and reported results through September 30, 2020. Abbreviations: PWH= Persons with HIV; PWoH= Persons without HIV
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID-19: People with Certain Medical Conditions. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-.... Published 2021. Updated May 13, 2021. Accessed June 9, 2021.
    1. Altuntas Aydin O, Kumbasar Karaosmanoglu H, Kart Yasar K. HIV/SARS-CoV-2 coinfected patients in Istanbul, Turkey. J Med Virol. 2020;92(11):2288–2290. - PubMed
    1. Bhaskaran K, Rentsch CT, MacKenna B, et al. HIV infection and COVID-19 death: a population-based cohort analysis of UK primary care data and linked national death registrations within the OpenSAFELY platform. Lancet HIV. 2021;8(1):e24–e32. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Western Cape Department of Health in collaboration with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, South Africa, Erratum to: Risk Factors for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Death in a Population Cohort Study from the Western Cape Province, South Africa, Clin Infect Dis, 2022. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hadi YB, Naqvi SFZ, Kupec JT, Sarwari AR. Characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with HIV: a multicentre research network study. AIDS. 2020;34(13):F3–F8. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Substances

Supplementary concepts