via Half the WorldThe findings of HPTN 052, that “men and women infected with HIV reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners by 96 percent through early initiation of oral antiretroviral therapy”, give the HIV prevention community a new and potentially highly effective tool in its efforts to reduce the spread of HIV.
Simply put, starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) before it’s required for one’s own health can substantially decrease the risk that a person living with HIV will pass the virus on to his or her sexual partners—a discovery that could be an incredible boon for young people, the group that has the most new HIV infections per capita. (Every day, some 2,500 young people acquire HIV, and young people accounted for 41% of new infections in those over 15 in 2009.)
However, there are two clear prerequisites to realizing the promise of this approach for youth, and neither one of them is all that likely to be met.
First and foremost, in order to start ART, a young person has to know his or her status—most young people infected with HIV don’t. (After all, if a young person can’t admit that she’s sexually active, she certainly doesn’t want to go seeking evidence, in the form of a positive HIV test, that this is the case.)
Second, it’s often an older person who infects a younger one—especially older men having sex with young women—so young people knowing their status isn’t enough.
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