Africans, women underrepresented in HIV ‘cure’ research cohorts

Focus on Global North populations could limit usefulness for majority living with HIV

HIV cure research, which seeks treatments that do not require lifelong therapy, predominantly targets HIV-positive populations in the Global North. That bias could limit its usefulness for the majority of people living with HIV globally, most of whom are in Africa, a new paper argues. 

The paper, published by two United States-based authors in the Journal of Virus Eradication on 2 September, analysed the location and sampling strategies of 97 HIV cure intervention trials and 36 observational studies. These represented all known HIV cure studies as of 16 August 2019, according to a list maintained by the Treatment Action Campaign, a global HIV treatment advocacy group.