HIV patients who have a stable partner experience delays in AIDS

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 02 Jan 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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Contact: Linda Millington
pressoffice@bma.org.uk
44-207-383-6473
BMJ-British Medical Journal

Stable partnership and progression to AIDS or death in HIV infected patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy: Swiss cohort study BMJ Volume 327, pp 15-18

For people with HIV, having a stable partner is associated with slower rate of progression to AIDS or death, finds a study in this week's BMJ.

Researchers in Switzerland followed 3,736 adults with HIV who had started highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) before 2002. Every six months, patients were asked whether they had had sexual intercourse with a stable partner.

When starting HAART, 52% of participants reported a stable partnership. This decreased to around 46% after five years of follow up. A stable partnership was associated with a slower rate of disease progression and an increase in CD4 blood cell count and viral suppression.

The reasons for this are unknown, but the authors speculate that people with a stable partner may have less depression.

For a healthcare professional caring for someone with HIV, the absence of a stable partnership indicates that the patient may progress more rapidly to the later stages of the disease, they conclude.

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