informed consent – a document that every person who participates in research is required to sign before entering the study. It outlines the details of a the study, including the known risks and benefits or any intervention. It also explains what is required during the study in terms of additional tests and clinic visits.
Glossary
Selected words and phrases
TasP (Treatment as Prevention) – a term to emphasise the impact that HIV drugs (ART) has on dramatically reducing the chance of HIV transmission.
ART is firstly for the health of the HIV positive person. But having an undetectable viral load on ART makes it so difficult to transmit HIV that the risk gets so close to zero that it is effectively zero.
For example, in the PARTNER study, nearly 900 couples had sex more than 58,000 times without condoms, without any transmissions. Each couple included one person who was HIV positive with an undetectable viral load on ART and one person who was HIV negative. ZERO transmissions.
performance stage – WHO classification of progress of HIV infection.
preclinical refers to the early development stage for a new drug, before any testing on humans. This includes they laboratory and animal tests. Preclinical studies will not always show what will happen when people use the drugs, but can provide a guide to serious problems that could occur.
antigen – a protein found on the surface of a virus or bacteria. It is recognised by the immune system which then generates antibodies.