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NEW THIS WEDNESDAY: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF RISK FACTORS FOR SEXUAL TRANSMISSION OF HIV IN INDIA

Tuesday, 30th of July 2013

 

• A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS OF RISK FACTORS FOR SEXUAL TRANSMISSION OF HIV IN INDIA

“Among 13 studies, male circumcision status (or Muslim religion) significantly reduced the probability of HIV infection (OR: 0.57; 95%CI: 0.44–0.73) pooled across both genders and risk populations (Figure 2a). Among men, circumcision was associated with an approximately 40% reduction in probability of HIV infection (OR: 0.66; 95%CI: 0.53–0.83). This effect differed between men in high-risk (OR: 0.72; 95%CI: 0.56–0.92) or those in the general population (OR:0.56; 95%CI: 0.36–0.87) but not significantly. Among women overall, Muslim religion was also significantly associated with reduced probability of HIV infection (OR: 0.40; 95%CI: 0.18–0.93). There were an insufficient number of studies to look at differences between high- and low-risk populations among women. In our study population one of the largest attributable fractions for women was non-Muslim religion. Assuming an indirect causal association (due to male circumcision), approximately 60% of all HIV infections among women in our study population were attributed to non-Muslim religion (Table 2).”

Paul Arora mail,

* E-mail: paul.arora@mail.utoronto.ca

Affiliations: Division of Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Centre for Global Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 

Nico J. D. Nagelkerke, Affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

 

Prabhat Jha Affiliations: Division of Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Centre for Global Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michaels Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 

Abstract and introduction below; full text, with figures, is at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0044094

Background

Approximately 2.4 million people are living with HIV in India. This large disease burden, and potential for epidemic spread in some areas, demands a full understanding of transmission in that country. We wished to quantify the effects of key sexual risk factors for HIV infection for each gender and among high- and low-HIV risk populations in India.

Methodology

We conducted a systematic review of sexual risk factors for HIV infection from 35 published studies. Risk factors analyzed were: male circumcision/religion, Herpes Simplex Virus 2, syphilis, gonorrhoea, genital ulcer, multiple sexual partners and commercial sex. Studies were included if they met predetermined criteria. Data were extracted and checked by two researchers and random-effects meta analysis of effects was conducted. Heterogeneity in effect estimates was examined by I2 statistic. Publication bias was tested by Beggs test and funnel plots. Meta regression was used to assess effect modification by various study attributes.

Results

All risk factors were significantly associated with HIV status. The factor most strongly associated with HIV for both sexes was HSV-2 infection (ORmen: 5.87; 95%CI: 2.46–14.03; ORwomen: 6.44; 95%CI: 3.22–12.86). The effect of multiple sexual partners was similar among men (OR = 2.46; 95%CI: 1.91–3.17,) and women (OR = 2.02; 95%CI: 1.43–2.87) and when further stratified by HIV-risk group. The association between HSV-2 and HIV prevalence was consistently stronger than other STIs or self-reported genital ulcer. If the strong associations between HSV-2 and HIV were interpreted causally, these results implied that approximately half of the HIV infections observed in our study population were attributable to HSV-2 infection.

Conclusions

The risk factors examined in our analysis should remain targets of HIV prevention programs. Our results confirm that sexual risk factors for HIV infection continue to be an important part of Indian HIV epidemic 26 years after it began.

Citation: Arora P, Nagelkerke NJD, Jha P (2012) A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Risk Factors for Sexual Transmission of HIV in India. PLoS ONE 7(8): e44094. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044094

Editor: Susan Marie Graham, University of Washington, United States of America

Received: February 3, 2012; Accepted: July 30, 2012; Published: August 28, 2012

Copyright: © Arora et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Approximately 2.4 million people live with HIV/AIDS in India today [1]. While this represents a relatively small proportion of Indias 1.2 billion people, a large absolute burden and the potential for epidemic spread demands a full understanding of HIV transmission in that country. It is important to study risk factors because the nature of the epidemic should be taken into consideration when choosing prevention approaches. Thailand experienced a very successful HIV prevention campaign in the 1990s by achieving a high rate of condom use for high-risk sex contacts in brothels[2]. HIV incidence subsequently fell but due to a combination of the drying up of the free condom supply, due to the Asiatic Crisis of 1997, and the shift of sex work typology from brothel to home- and street-based, HIV incidence began to increase again.

Previous studies on HIV in India have identified heterosexual sex (chiefly through commercial sex between male clients and female sex workers) as the primary driver of HIV incidence in the population [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. Key risk factors that have been identified in the literature are use of, or engaging in, commercial sex work [8], [9], bacterial and viral sexually transmitted infections (STI) [5], [7], [10], numbers of sex partners [11], [12], [13], [14] and male circumcision [6], [11], [15], [16]. These are examples of “proximal” risk factors [17]. Distal risk factors have been identified including: proximity to brothel, highways and impaired access to STI clinical services[17], [18]. In this study we focus on proximal factors as important targets for interventions.

The Indian HIV epidemic exhibits a large amount of geographic heterogeneity in terms of HIV risk [19], [20]. We were interested in understanding the effects of these risk factors, and estimating their size, for each gender and in different epidemiologic settings (populations at higher or lower risk of HIV infection due to their behaviours and different types of STIs such as bacterial versus viral), to improve understanding of transmission dynamics [21], [22]. Documenting and explaining this variation would improve our understanding of the epidemic in India. We know of no published systematic review that has quantified the effects of these risk factors in India.