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University HIV expert Dr. “HIV turns off all the brakes in the immune system and as a result, you get this inflammatory response that is strong and sustained – and now there’s Covid on top of that,” said Steven Deeks. California, San Francisco. I would be surprised if the progression of Covid-19 wasn’t related to HIV.

Dr. Deeks disagreed with the study researchers’ decision to adjust the calculations for the presence of other conditions, such as obesity, because HIV infection itself can cause many of these diseases. “We argue that a 25-year history of HIV infection is an independent risk factor for progression to HIV infection. heart disease, cancer, aging,” he said. He said that without this statistical adjustment, the increased risk of death for these patients would likely be higher than the 30 percent reported by the study.

There was a bias in many previous studies that may have masked some of the risk: Doctors are more likely to hospitalize Covid-19 patients with HIV who are less sick and more likely to get sick. An infectious disease physician at San Francisco General Hospital, Dr. Matthew Spinelli said that a larger pool of HIV patients would make HIV infection less of a problem than it was.

“Initial studies may have misled people on this question,” he said. The new study’s findings are more in line with larger, population-based studies. South Africa and England HIV infection doubles the risk of dying from Covid-19, and similar work “In New York State,” he added.

Dr. Deeks said the new findings should prompt doctors to give people with HIV quick access to monoclonal antibodies or antiviral drugs to treat Covid-19. The data also highlight the need to understand how HIV infection affects a person’s response to the Covid vaccine and whether some people with HIV need boosters. many immunocompromised people make.

AIDS activists have fought successfully to include people with HIV in clinical trials of coronavirus vaccines, but data is limited. A clinical trial in South Africa showed higher efficiency For the coronavirus vaccine made by Novavax, when the analysis excluded people with HIV, it suggests that HIV infection undermines the immune response to vaccines.

Director of HIV programs at WHO, Dr. Meg Doherty said that 40 of the 100 countries that have published information have listed people living with HIV as the priority group for the Covid-19 vaccine.