Gay, Positive, Herpes and LGV

posted: 25/02/2011

Gay men living with HIV who have herpes may find symptoms flare up worse and last longer. Preventive treatment can help prevent herpes flare ups.

Herpes also makes it much easier to pass on HIV (and other STIs) because it raises your viral load, and the blisters contain HIV and provide a way in and out for HIV.
 

Herpes leaflet for gay men

As well as that herpes leafte for gay men, there’s also a new detailed briefing about herpes for sexual health and HIV professionals from Sigma Research, produced for CHAPS, England's gay men's HIV prevention and sexuial health partnership.

LGV
LGV (lymphogranuloma venereum) is a much more uncommon sexually transmitted infection and, like herpes, it's one that gay men living with HIV are more likely to get. It’s caused by varieties of chlamydia bacteria.

LGV caused ulcers, like herpes and syphilis do, and these surface wounds are always a route in and out for HIV.

Having LGV also increases your HIV viral load and that makes passing on HIV more likely.

LGV leaflet for gay men

THT have more information about herpes, LGV and other STIs, on their new website for people living with HIV, My HIV

Europe, HIV and Hepatitis C

posted: 15/12/2010

Recommendations for treating acute hepatitis C infection in people with HIV in Europe have just been published in AIDS. The new European recommendations deal with detecting and treating hepatitis C and these follow the UK's own guide, written in 2010.

What they mean by ‘acute’ is recently infected, within the last 6 months.

Hepatitis C abroad (and at home)

Roughly a third of HIV-positive people in Europe also have hepatitis C. Few people in England have both HIV and hepatitis C because we introduced harm reduction (like clean needles and syringes) for injecting drug users, in the early years of HIV. In NW England only 2% of people with HIV were infected through injecting drug use.
 

However recently sexually transmitted hepatitis C among HIV-positive gay men has become a problem. So in spring this year doctors, researchers and activists met in Paris to develop guidelines for managing early-stage hepatitis C infection.
 

Their recommendations are about

• Defining acute hepatitis C infection
• Screening for hepatitis C
• Risk reduction advice
• Natural history
• Treatment during acute infection.
   

Acute hepatitis C means the first six months after infection with the virus. Many people do not develop symptoms when they first contract hepatitis C, and delayed antibody responses are found in some people with HIV.

Testing points

People with HIV should be tested for hepatitis C. Screening recommendations from Europe are to test everyone newly diagnosed with HIV for hepatitis C, and HIV-positive gay men should have checks at least annually.
 

HIV, gay men and hepatitis C

It is still not clear exactly how hepatitis C is being sexually transmitted between HIV-positive gay men. European hepatitis C sex-risk reduction advice is to discuss fisting, recreational drug use, group sex, use of sex toys, unprotected sex, traumatic sex, sharing injecting equipment, and risks from blood-to-blood contact.
 

Treat or natural recovery

Some people naturally get rid of hepatitis C infection without any treatment. But most people with HIV will need hepatitis C treatment. Up to 40% of HIV-positive people may naturally get rid of their early-stage hepatitis C infection.
 

Treatment for hepatitis C works better for people with HIV when started early, within the first year.
 

2010 UK Hepatitis C and HIV treatment guidelines

Source with reference for the European guidelines

Image 2009 European HIV treatment guidelines, from European AIDS Clinical Society