Clinical challenges in HIV/AIDS: Hints for advancing prevention and patient management strategies.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome has been one of the most devastating epidemics of the last century. The current estimate for people living with the HIV is 36.9 million. Today, despite availability of potent and safe drugs for effective treatment, lifelong therapy is required for preventing HIV re-emergence from a pool of latently infected cells. However, recent evidence show the importance to expand HIV testing, to offer antiretroviral treatment to all infected individuals, and to ensure retention through all the cascade of care. In addition, circumcision, pre-exposure prophylaxis, and other biomedical tools are now available for included in a comprehensive preventive package. Use of all the available tools might allow cutting the HIV transmission in 2030. In this article, we review the status of the epidemic, the latest advances in prevention and treatment, the concept of treatment as prevention and the challenges and opportunities for the HIV cure agenda.
Fundación Huésped, Clinical Research Department, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Electronic address: omar.sued@huesped.org.ar.
Omar
O
Sued
Fundación Huésped, Clinical Research Department, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Electronic address: maria.figueroa@huesped.org.ar.
María Inés
MI
Figueroa
Fundación Huésped, Clinical Research Department, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Electronic address: pcahn@huesped.org.ar.
Pedro
P
Cahn
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D019468:Disease Management; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male
HIV cure; HIV nanoformulations; Microbicides; Nanotechnology; Pre-exposure prophylaxis; Treatment as prevention