Martes, 4 de marzo de 2025

Alejandro G García-Ruiz de Morales, María Jesús Vivancos,...,Santiago Moreno, María Jesús Pérez-Elías and Javier Martínez-Sanz. Transition times across the HIV care continuum in Spain from 2005 to 2022: a longitudinal cohort study

Lancet HIV. 2024

"Spain leads HIV care in Europe after an impressive improvement in the HIV care cascade, nearing UNAIDS goals for HIV elimination" - Dr. Alejandro G. García-Ruiz de Morales -

Summary:

Background: Ending AIDS by 2030 requires improvements across all stages of the HIV care continuum. We used a longitudinal approach to assess changes in the HIV care continuum in Spain and transition probabilities across different stages.

Methods: We used data from the prospective Cohort of the Spanish HIV/AIDS Research Network to analyse the time from diagnosis to linkage to care, linkage to care to antiretroviral therapy (ART), and ART to viral suppression in five calendar periods defined by milestones in ART, from 2005 to 2022. We used the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazard models to estimate cumulative probabilities of stage transition within 1, 3, 6, and 12 months of stage eligibility, by period.

Findings: We included 18 529 participants. Comparing the initial (2005-09) and final (2020-22) periods, time to linkage to care decreased from a median of 6·0 weeks to 1·3 weeks, time to ART initiation from 15·9 weeks to 0·4 weeks, and time to viral suppression from 13·3 weeks to 7·1 weeks. Adjusted hazard ratios for the comparison between the last period and the initial period were 3·1 (95% CI 2·8-3·4) for linkage to care within 1 month, 11·4 (10·1-12·3) for ART initiation within 1 month, and 2·2 (1·2-2·4) for viral suppression within 3 months. The aggregate proportion of late diagnoses was 38·6%, increasing after 2012 to 46·4% in the 2020-22 period. Same-day ART initiation increased from 18% to 39% from 2005 to 2022. The overall incidence rate of virological failure was 1·05 failures per 1000 person-years and showed a non-significant decline throughout the study.

Interpretation: The great improvement in transition times through the HIV care cascade might put Spain on the verge of achieving the UNAIDS targets for HIV elimination. However, late diagnosis remains a challenge that should be addressed.

Why do you highlight this publication?

Using data from more than 18,500 ART-naïve participants, we provide insights into the dynamic evolution of the HIV treatment cascade from 2005 to 2022 in Spain. We demonstrate a great reduction in the time required to reach each step of the cascade. These improvements position Spain as the sole European Union member state reporting a mere 1% gap from achieving UNAIDS goals, just six months after successfully completing the preceding stage. Our data provide clear insights into HIV care in a country with high resources, highlighting the importance of adopting strategies to minimize late diagnosis, which is not intrinsically linked to the HIV care cascade and remains one of the biggest concerns in HIV care in Europe.