Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 13, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: May 7, 2018 - Jul 18, 2018
Date Accepted: Jul 18, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Viral Loads Within 6 Weeks After Diagnosis of HIV Infection in Early and Later Stages: Observational Study Using National Surveillance Data
Background:
Early (including acute) HIV infection is associated with viral loads higher than those in later stages.
Objective:
This study aimed to examine the association between acute infection and viral loads near the time of diagnosis using data reported to the US National HIV Surveillance System.
Methods:
We analyzed data on infections diagnosed in 2012-2016 and reported through December 2017. Diagnosis and staging were based on the 2014 US surveillance case definition for HIV infection. We divided early HIV-1 infection (stage 0) into two subcategories. Subcategory 0α: a negative or indeterminate HIV-1 antibody test was ≤60 days after the first confirmed positive HIV-1 test or a negative or indeterminate antibody test or qualitative HIV-1 nucleic acid test (NAT) was ≤180 days before the first positive test, the latter being a NAT or detectable viral load. Subcategory 0β: a negative or indeterminate antibody or qualitative NAT was ≤180 days before the first positive test, the latter being an HIV antibody or antigen/antibody test. We compared median earliest viral loads for each stage and subcategory in each of the first 6 weeks after diagnosis using only the earliest viral load for each individual.
Results:
Of 203,392 infections, 56.69% (115,297/203,392) were reported with a quantified earliest viral load within 6 weeks after diagnosis and criteria sufficient to determine the stage at diagnosis. Among 5081 infections at stage 0, the median earliest viral load fell from 694,000 copies/mL in week 1 to 125,022 in week 2 and 43,473 by week 6. Among 30,910 infections in stage 1, the median earliest viral load ranged 15,412-17,495. Among 42,784 infections in stage 2, the median viral load declined from 44,973 in week 1 to 38,497 in week 6. Among 36,522 infections in stage 3 (AIDS), the median viral load dropped from 205,862 in week 1 to 119,000 in week 6. The median earliest viral load in stage 0 subcategory 0α fell from 1,344,590 copies/mL in week 1 to 362,467 in week 2 and 47,320 in week 6, while that in subcategory 0β was 70,114 copies/mL in week 1 and then 32,033 to 44,067 in weeks 2-6. The median viral load in subcategory 0α was higher than that in subcategory 0β in each of the first 6 weeks after diagnosis (P<.001).
Conclusions:
In the 1st week after diagnosis, viral loads in early infections are generally several times higher than those in later stages at diagnosis. By the 3rd week, however, most are lower than those in stage 3. High viral loads in early infection are much more common in subcategory 0α than in subcategory 0β, consistent with 0α comprising mostly acute infections and 0β comprising mostly postacute early infections. These findings may inform the prioritization of interventions for prevention.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.