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Robin Muchetu Senior Reporter
PEOPLE living with HIV and are on Antiretrovirals such as Truvada or Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF)/emtricitabine (FTC) have proved to be responding better to covid-19 with the virus incidence much lower, a study has revealed.

According to a study, Incidents and Severity of Covid-19 in HIV positive persons Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, HIV positive patients receiving the named ARVs in Spain have a lower risk for covid-19 and related hospitalization than those receiving other therapies for HIV and the general population.

“The lack of increased risk for serious covid-19 among HIV positive persons might me the result of their use of ART” the researchers said.

Furthermore, they said ART was proposed as a protective factor against SARS back in 2003 but there were few cases though at that time to draw significant conclusions about its role.

The covid-19 outbreak is said to have collided with the pre-existing HIV pandemic in Spain and the rest of the world and Spain is the country with the highest HIV prevalence in Europe.

It is further noted that the relationship between HIV and Covid-19 is unclear.

“Despite the higher mortality due to corona virus disease 2019 reported among some persons with immunosuppression, HIV infection was not identified as an important comorbid condition in hospitalized patients with covid19 in New York and Madrid. One possibility is that HIV positive persons do not develop the intense immunologic response that often complicates the clinical course of covid-19,” it was discovered.

They however note that their findings warrant further investigation in HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) studies as a potential treatment or prevention of covid-19 in people without HIV.

Mr Solwayo Ngwenya, the acting Chief Executive Officer with Mpilo Central Hospital said the findings must be treated with caution also saying they were good outcomes if they were true.

“It will be very good news if people taking ARVs had good outcomes compared to others. We have not seen this virus here and how it behaves in Zimbabwe so I add caution to those taking ARVs to be as cautious as they can be like everyone else, to protect themselves from covid-19,” he said.

He said as medical experts they were yet to see the effects of the corona virus in the country as time moves and to also see if the results observed in Spain will be the same with Zimbabwe when they embark on studies, they do their own studies.

Dr Calvin Charambira an epidemiologist said results could be similar if Zimbabwe were to take a study of that nature.

“Most likely it will follow suit. Us being a high HIV burdened country we could have faced more deaths if HIV was a comorbid condition associated with adverse covid-19 outcomes.

“I don’t know in South Africa if they are gathering data on HIV status among people affected with Covi19 then we could compare the severity and deaths based on HIV status with Zimbabwe,” he suggested.

The study was undertaken in HIV clinics from 1 February 2020 to 15 April 2020 and 77 590 HIV positive persons participated in the study in Spain.

The study also notes that covid-19 is expected to be more severe in HIV positive persons because of risk factors such as age, sex, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease which is very common in this population.

However, the researchers said they were baffled to find out that there was no higher risk of covid-19 diagnosis in HIV positive people who were on the two regimens of ARVs and had reached viral suppression versus the general population during this study.

According to the study, 77 590 HIV positive persons receiving ART, 236 were diagnosed with covid-19, 151 were hospitalized, 15 were admitted in to the Intensive Care Unit and 20 died. They also said the risk was higher in people that were over 70 years of age.

Of the total number of participants, no patient taking TDF/FTC were admitted in to the ICU or died as a result.

Researchers also could not explain the lower risk of hospitalisation associated with people who were taking the said ARVs.

“Alternatively, another explanation for these findings is that TDF/FTC prevents serious covid-19 in HIV positive persons,” they suggested.