Prevalence
By 2020, an estimated 37.7 million people were infected with HIV worldwide (67% in sub-Saharan Africa), although many people are unaware of their HIV status as infection can be asymptomatic for the first few years. That year there were nearly 700,000 AIDS deaths and 1.5 million new cases, of which 150,000 were children. Half of these children, without early diagnosis and treatment, will die before their second birthday.
Prevention and treatment
Prevention of HIV infection depends largely on behaviour change and primarily on the avoidance of risky sexual behaviours, which in addition to preventing other sexually transmitted infections and diseases (STIs/STDs).
Once a person is infected with HIV, antiretroviral treatment is available to reduce the presence of the virus in the body, reduce progression to AIDS and reduce transmission. In order to achieve control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, UNAIDS has set the target of goal 95-95-95 by 2030, i.e. 95% of infected people should be diagnosed, 95% should receive correct antiretroviral treatment and, of this treated population, 95% should achieve undetectable levels of the virus in their blood, which would make them incapable of transmitting the infection. Currently, a high percentage of the population has access to antiretroviral drugs, but there are major gaps in the diagnosis of infection and monitoring of treatment in developing countries development.
To this end, group has the following objectives:
- To identify at Monkole Hospital Centre (Kinshasa, DRC) the factors associated with change in sexual behaviours following the result HIV test conducted at committee and Voluntary HIV Diagnosis (VDD).
- To assess the impact of committee and Voluntary HIV Diagnosis on HIV knowledge, attitudes and sexual risk behaviours months after receiving an HIV+ or HIV- test.
- Characterise the infecting HIV-1 subtypes and the prevalence of antiretroviral resistance mutations.
- To assess the use of dried blood as an alternative to plasma for HIV-1 quantification and characterisation at a foreign reference laboratory .
Team researcher Viral diseases. HIV/Aids
Gabriel Reina González (PhD)
researcher Main
laboratory of Microbiology
+34 948 255400 Extension: 805103
Silvia Carlos Chillerón (PhD)
Principal Investigator
Preventive Medicine and Public Health
+34 948 425 600 Extension: 806636
Paula Martínez de Aguirre
PhD student/spanish pharmacy residency program Microbiology
+34 948 255400 Extension: 825112
Publications
The most important publications of the last few years can be viewed via PubMed(click here).