{"id":182316,"date":"2016-01-17T14:30:55","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T14:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=182316"},"modified":"2016-01-17T14:30:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-17T14:30:55","slug":"hiv-drugs-give-couples-ray-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=182316","title":{"rendered":"HIV drugs give couples ‘ray of hope’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most effective form of protection against contracting HIV is to use a condom while having sex. But what if you want children? A project in Kenya is helping couples there have a family without risking their health.<\/p>\n

John and his wife Josephine live a few hours north of Nairobi. Josephine is HIV positive, John is negative.<\/p>\n

He says such situations can be difficult. “I’ve known couples who have separated”, he says.
\nThere are 26,0000 couples in Kenya where one partner is positive and the other negative.<\/p>\n

Known as serodiscordant couples, they account for 44% of new HIV infections in the country. Despite this, 44% of these couples have had children together.<\/p>\n

But the drive to have children is still very strong – in one recent study involving serodiscordant couples 17% of the women became pregnant.<\/p>\n

Now a new drugs trial is giving a ray of hope. A new way of using the anti-HIV drugs – normally given to people who are HIV positive – could potentially mean couples could try and conceive risk-free.<\/p>\n

The cocktail of drugs, known as PrEP is already being used for gay men in the UK and US.<\/p>\n

Dr Nelly Mugo from the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi and a team from Washington University ran the trial.<\/p>\n

“The Partners PrEP study took over 4,700 couples, one of whom had HIV, and one who didn’t. The person who wasn’t infected took PrEP over the course of 36 months.<\/p>\n

“We found that having the drug in your system reduced the rate of transmission by over 90%.
\n“If the positive partner was also taking antiretroviral drugs, the risk of transmission would reduce to zero or close to zero.”<\/p>\n

In some communities social pressure to have children can be huge, with families of childless couples often struggling to understand why they haven’t had children.<\/p>\n

‘Nowhere to hide’<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a recent study couples described feeling helpless and vulnerable to HIV while trying to conceive.<\/p>\n

Uninfected partners were relieved when they remained uninfected after unprotected sex, which for some reinforced a belief in divine protection.<\/p>\n

Dr Mugo says: “Common motivations for child-bearing included fulfilling the couples’ preferred family size, desire for biological children, maintaining partnership stability and, often most importantly, external pressure from society.”<\/p>\n

\"HIV<\/p>\n

HIV is incurable because, once in your body, it hides in inaccessible places, creating reservoirs, which means it can never be flushed out.<\/p>\n

The theory behind PrEP is that taking the antiretroviral drugs before becoming infected means they are already in the body.<\/p>\n

But researchers have shown that if a non-infected person already has the PrEP drugs in their system when the virus enters their body it gets killed.<\/p>\n

This means it doesn’t have a chance to hide in reservoirs, and so its harder for that person to become infected.<\/p>\n

“PrEP is the best thing that can happen for these couples” says Dr Mugo, because it could solve what she calls the “discordance dilemma”.<\/p>\n

“When you find out your partner is HIV positive it can lead to conflicting emotions,” she adds. “But relationships and feelings and love are stronger than the virus.<\/p>\n

“With many couples they want to stay together, but are unable to have normalised sexual relationships. PrEP has the potential to solve this problem.”<\/p>\n

The trial was a success. As of September 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that people at substantial risk of HIV infection should be offered PrEP as an additional prevention choice, as part of comprehensive prevention.<\/p>\n

The national health board in Kenya is now considering licensing the drugs for discordant couples around the country.
\n–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most effective form of protection against contracting HIV is to use a condom while having sex. But what if you want children? A project in Kenya is helping couples there have a family without risking their health. John and his wife Josephine live a few hours north of Nairobi. Josephine is HIV positive, John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}