Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health are teaming up with colleagues at the University of Puerto Rico to improve access to testing, treatment and care for people living with HIV in the capital city, San Juan.
With support from the National Institutes of Health, the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) and the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus (UPR-MSC) are launching two projects designed to address Puerto Rico’s urgent HIV problem as part of the federal government’s Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative. The new grants are supported by an NIH program that aims to facilitate HIV implementation research in high-burden areas in the United States.
In the first project, a collaborative research team will work with men and women with HIV in San Juan to assess the feasibility of providing rapid oral fluid HIV self-test kits to partners of people living with HIV and to identify ways of overcoming existing barriers to treatment. Through focus groups and meetings, the team will also assess the feasibility of initiating Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV-negative partners.
“We are very excited about the ways in which these supplements will allow us to build a collaborative relationship with our partners at the University of Puerto Rico, while addressing some of the “Pillars” (Diagnose, Treat, Protect, and Respond) of the Ending the Epidemic initiative,” said Paul Cleary, the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health, director of CIRA, and Yale’s principal investigator on the self-testing study.
The project is supported by a $172,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In the second project, the researchers will develop education materials to increase awareness of the Undetectable=Untransmissible campaign among people living with HIV in San Juan. The materials will be introduced to care providers that support people living with or at risk of HIV to enhance their knowledge and skills related to the federal “Treatment as Prevention” initiative and U=U message, which signifies that individuals with HIV who have achieved an undetectable viral load through antiretroviral therapy (ART) cannot sexually transmit the virus to others. The program will later be evaluated for possible expansion to a larger group of stakeholders.
YSPH Professor Trace Kershaw is Yale’s Principal Investigator on the study, which is supported by a separate $172,000 grant from NIH.
“This second project will be an almost ideal complement to the first project and together, they will significantly increase our knowledge about how best to diagnose and treat vulnerable individuals in Puerto Rico,” Cleary said.
The University of Puerto Rico MSC research team is represented by Dr. Carmen Zorrilla, a leading HIV researcher and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the UPR School of Medicine; Associate Professor Silvia Rabionet, of the UPR Graduate School of Public Health; and Assistant Professor Marcilyn Colón-Colón of the UPR Graduate School of Public Health. They have partnered with several organizations who provide care to people living with HIV and an organization of patient activists as well. The first project was proposed by the partners of patients receiving care as an alternative to testing at clinical facilities.