HIV incidence among sexual health clinic attendees in England: First estimates for black African heterosexuals using a biomarker, 2009-2013.
HIV incidence among sexual health clinic attendees in England: First estimates for black African heterosexuals using a biomarker, 2009-2013.
Blog Article
Introduction
The HIV epidemic in England is largely concentrated among heterosexuals who are predominately black African and men who hobbit door for sale have sex with men (MSM).We present for the first time trends in annual HIV incidence for adults attending sexual health clinics, where 80% of all HIV diagnoses are made.Methods
We identified newly diagnosed incident HIV using a recent infection testing algorithm (RITA) consisting of a biomarker (AxSYM assay, modified to determine antibody avidity), epidemiological and clinical information.We estimated HIV incidence using the WHO RITA formula for cross-sectional studies, with HIV testing data from sexual health clinics as the denominator.Results
From 2009 to 2013, each year, between 9,700 and 26,000 black African heterosexuals (of between 161,000 and 231,000 heterosexuals overall) were included in analyses.For the same period, annually between 19,000 and 55,000 MSM were included.Estimates of HIV incidence among black Africans increased slightly (although non-significantly) from 0.15% (95% C.I.0.
05%-0.26%) in 2009 to 0.19% (95% C.I.0.
04%-0.34%) in 2013 and was 4-5-fold higher than among all heterosexuals among which it remained stable between 0.03% (95% C.I.0.
02%-0.05%) and 0.05% (95% C.I.0.
03%-0.07%) over the period.Among MSM incidence was highest and increased (non-significantly) from 1.24% (95%C.I 0.
96-1.52%) to 1.46% (95% C.I 1.23%-1.
70%) after a peak of 1.52% (95%C.I 1.30%-1.75%) in 2012.