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Home arrow Health & Medicine arrow UNC awarded $3.5 million to study HIV transmission prevention among newly infected
UNC awarded $3.5 million to study HIV transmission prevention among newly infected E-mail
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A team of researchers from the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases has received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to study HIV prevention methods among people with acute HIV infection (AHI).

The four-year study will involve developing a new program that identifies and informs people with acute HIV infection, and implementing and evaluating combined behavioral and antiretroviral therapy interventions. The research will be conducted at UNC Project, the institute’s research, care and training facility in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Acute HIV infection is the period between infection and detection of HIV antibodies and lasts up to 12 weeks. During this brief window of time, the virus replicates rapidly, and the probability of transmission is very high. People in this stage of the disease may be responsible for a substantial proportion of onward transmission of HIV infection, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, said William Miller, M.D., Ph.D., co-principal investigator of the study.

“There is no ‘magic bullet’ to prevent HIV infection,” said Miller, associate professor of medicine and epidemiology in the School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health, respectively. “Successful prevention programs will require combining prevention strategies. In this study we will try to reduce transmission from newly infected people.”

Audrey Pettifor, Ph.D., the study’s other co-principal investigator and assistant professor of epidemiology in the public health school, said identifying people with AHI and intervening to reduce onward transmission represented a tantalizing, but until now untested and unproven, opportunity for HIV prevention.

“If we find that acute infection contributes considerably to the spread of HIV, then a combined behavioral and bio-medical intervention has the potential to significantly reduce new infections,” Pettifor said.

UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases contact: Lisa Chensvold, (919) 843-5719, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it