We present the T-cell counts from adult Africans with HIV shortly following transmission to their sexual partners. HIV-discordant couples in Zambia, Uganda and Rwanda were followed prospectively and received couples counseling and condoms. The estimated date of infection EDI of the incident case was calculated based on testing history. EDI was unknown for suspected transmitting partners.
From —, 4, HIV-discordant couples were enrolled in this cohort, and cases of incident HIV infection were documented. CD4 counts in the transmitting partner were measured a median of 56 days after EDI mean This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. The full list of IAVI donors is available at www. None of the funders had a role in study design, data collection, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. HIV-1 replication is effectively suppressed in both blood and genital secretions when ART is taken, which decreases the likelihood of transmitting the virus to an uninfected partner [ 2 — 6 ].
In recent years, the correlation between ART use and the reduction of HIV-1 transmission has been strengthened by the results of a large clinical trial, modeling studies, and observational studies. A prospective cohort study of African heterosexual discordant couples provided evidence that ART significantly reduced the frequency of HIV-1 transmission events between partners[ 7 ].
Results from these and other large-scale clinical research provide strong evidence that the use of ART can significantly reduce the risk of onward HIV transmission [ 9 — 11 ]. The timing of ART initiation has significant implications for discordant heterosexual couples, who continue to be at very high risk of HIV infection in SSA [ 12 , 13 ].
