The authors are grateful to the study participants for their generous co-operation, the research project staff, the laboratory staff of MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS and the Medical Research Council (UK), which funded the research programme of which this study was a part. “
“Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)

significantly impact the health of people living with HIV/AIDS, increasing XL184 in vivo HIV infectiousness and therefore transmissibility. The current study examined STIs in a community sample of 490 HIV-positive men and women. Assessments were performed using confidential computerized interviews in a community research setting. 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 SB203580 solubility dmso 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. Individuals who believed that having an much 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. HIV is most commonly spread by people who have not yet tested HIV positive and therefore do not know

that they are HIV infected. The majority of individuals diagnosed with HIV avoid exposing sexual partners to the virus. HIV-positive persons who do engage in unprotected sex with unknown-status or HIV-negative sexual partners more often do so when they believe they are not infectious [1]. Although HIV transmission can occur at any point in the HIV disease process, infectiousness is greatest in the very earliest stages of infection, for example during acute infection [2–4] and later during symptomatic HIV disease [5,6]. At all stages of HIV infection, antiretroviral treatments effectively suppress HIV replication, reduce concentrations of virus and potentially decrease infectiousness [7]. Undetectable viral load in blood plasma appears to be fairly stable, suggesting that infectiousness may not vary substantially between viral load tests in clinical care [8]. Consensus is building around the concept of reducing infectiousness with HIV treatments for HIV prevention [9–11].