Open AccessSocial network approaches to locating people recently infected with HIV in Odessa, Ukraine
Author(s) -
Williams Leslie D,
Korobchuk Ania,
Smyrnov Pavlo,
Sazonova Yana,
Nikolopoulos Georgios K,
Skaathun Britt,
Morgan Ethan,
Schneider John,
Vasylyeva Tetyana I,
Duong Yen T,
Chernyavska Svitlana,
Goncharov Vitaliy,
Kotlik Ludmila,
Friedman Samuel R
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of the international aids society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.724
H-Index - 62
ISSN - 1758-2652
DOI - 10.1002/jia2.25330
Subject(s) - medicine , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , context (archaeology) , psychological intervention , transmission (telecommunications) , intervention (counseling) , treatment as prevention , social network (sociolinguistics) , demography , environmental health , virology , psychiatry , telecommunications , viral load , biology , antiretroviral therapy , social media , paleontology , sociology , computer science , law , political science
This paper examines the extent to which an intervention succeeded in locating people who had recently become infected with HIV in the context of the large‐scale Ukrainian epidemic. Locating and intervening with people who recently became infected with HIV (people with recent infection, or Pw RI ) can reduce forward HIV transmission and help Pw RI remain healthy. Methods The Transmission Reduction Intervention Project ( TRIP ) recruited recently‐infected and longer‐term infected seeds in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2013 to 2016, and asked them to help recruit their extended risk network members. The proportions of network members who were Pw RI were compared between TRIP arms (i.e. networks of recently‐infected seeds vs. networks of longer‐term infected seeds) and to the proportion of participants who were Pw RI in an RDS ‐based Integrated Biobehavioral Surveillance of people who inject drugs in 2013. Results The networks of Pw RI seeds and those of longer‐term infected seeds had similar (2%) proportions who were themselves Pw RI . This was higher than the 0.25% proportion in IBBS ( OR = 7.80; p = 0.016). The odds ratio among the subset of participants who injected drugs was 11.17 ( p = 0.003). Cost comparison analyses using simplified ingredients‐based methods found that TRIP spent no more than US $4513 per Pw RI located whereas IBBS spent $11,924. Conclusions Further research is needed to confirm these results and improve TRIP further, but our findings suggest that interventions that trace the networks of people who test HIV ‐positive are a cost‐effective way to locate Pw RI and reduce HIV transmission and should therefore be implemented.