Pos-neg couples hold key to HIV prevention

Three decades after the onset of the HIV pandemic, Australia’s leading HIV research body is calling on ‘pos-neg’ couples to join the fight for HIV prevention

A study of serodiscordant gay couples, where one is HIV-positive and the other one HIV-negative, holds enormous promise for transmission prevention strategies, with the end objective of reducing overall infections.

The study, called Opposites Attract, is designed to establish if HIV transmission to the HIV-negative partner is linked to whether the HIV-positive partner is taking antiretroviral therapy and what men in these relationships think about this possibility of viral transmission.

This new study is now recruiting gay couples in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Recruitment will soon start in Brisbane, and in 2013 also in Cairns and Canberra. Recruitment is through referrals from clinics and by men in the community volunteering themselves.

“The Opposites Attract study is very exciting because it holds the potential answer to many treatment-as-prevention questions,” said UNSW Professor Andrew Grulich, head of the Kirby Institute’s HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Program. “Volunteers for this study will be making a major contribution to our understanding in this field.”

(Source: UNSW Australia)