One of the most interesting sessions at last month’s Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) 2012 Research Conference in Toronto was a plenary called “Is Treatment Enough Prevention?” This session focussed on the recent discourse concerning the potential for antiretroviral therapy to reduce infectiousness and thus, the theory goes, reduce infection rates. But to what extent does treatment as prevention work with gay men? If it hasn’t worked so far, why not? And does a discourse about reduced infectiousness result in changed behaviours, like an increase in unprotected sex?
A panel of international experts looked critically at treatment as prevention from various perspectives. I reviewed some of their thoughts here. Patrick Sullivan, whom I talk to in the video, below focussed on the gay and bi men’s ( MSM) community in particular.
You can see Sullivan’s presentation itself, and indeed that of others on the panel, here.
Patrick Sullivan, DVM, Ph. D. is Co-Director of the Prevention Sciences Core at Emory’s Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). His research focuses on HIV among men who have sex with men, including behavioural research, interventions and surveillance.
