{"id":10544,"date":"2010-06-01T16:50:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/?p=10544"},"modified":"2010-06-01T16:50:07","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T16:50:07","slug":"route-of-hcv-transmission-in-hiv-positive-gay-men-is-unlikely-to-be-from-semen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/10544","title":{"rendered":"Route of HCV transmission in HIV-positive gay men is unlikely to be from semen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Simon Collins, HIV i-Base<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The mechanism for high rates of hepatitis C (HCV) transmission in HIV-positive gay men is unknown with little data on whether HCV levels in semen had a similar risk factor to HIV viral load, especially during acute infection.<\/p>\n<p>Joanna Turner and colleagues presented a new study to inform this field. [1]<\/p>\n<p>Paired blood and semen samples were collected from 5 acute and 9 chronic HCV cases in HIV-positive men. At baseline 0\/5 acute and 2\/9 chronic cases had detectable HCV RNA in semen. Of all samples tested 2\/10 (20%) of acute cases and 4\/23 (17%) of chronic cases (p=NS) had detectable HCV RNA in semen.<\/p>\n<p>However, when detected, HCV RNA viral loads were low: &lt;30 IU\/mL (acute cases) and &lt;230 IU\/mL (chronic cases) and did not correlate with plasma HCV viral load<\/p>\n<p>Taken together, this lead the researcher to suggests that the quantity of seminal HCV virus is not a significant factor in determining the rate of HCV transmission, even during acute infection. Recruitment to the study is ongoing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Comment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>HCV levels in semen have been previously reported. [2] Results from the larger study will be important to understand whether infection from semen is likely to occur at these low levels.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>References<\/p>\n<p>1. Turner J et al. Hepatitis C viral load in semen of HIV-positive men during acute and chronic hepatitis C infection. 2nd Joint Conference of BHIVA with BASHH, 20\u009623 April 2010, Manchester.\u00a0Oral abstract O5.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aegis.org\/conferences\/BHIVA\/2010\/16BHIVA-2010.pdf\">http:\/\/www.aegis.org\/conferences\/BHIVA\/2010\/16BHIVA-2010.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>2. See this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/11045\">earlier report<\/a> in HTB from 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Simon Collins, HIV i-Base The mechanism for high rates of hepatitis C (HCV) transmission in HIV-positive gay men is unknown with little data on whether HCV levels in semen had a similar risk factor to HIV viral load, especially during &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,24],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-10544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conference-reports","category-hepatitis-coinfection","tag-bhiva-bashh-2nd-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}