Early inflammation as a footprint of increased mortality risk in infants living with HIV from three African countries.

In this work our aim was to identify early biomarkers in plasma samples associated with mortality in children with perinatal HIV treated early in life, to potentially inform early intervention targeting this vulnerable group. 20/215 children (9.3%) with perinatal HIV, enrolled within 3 months of age died prematurely within the first year of the study, despite early ART initiation.

eYoung men's experiences of violence and poverty and the relationship to sexually transmissible HIV: a cross sectional study from rural South Africa.

Background: Young (ages 18-35 years) men are inadequately engaged in HIV prevention and treatment globally, including in South Africa, increasing the likelihood of them having sexually transmissible HIV (i.e. living with HIV but with high viral loads).

Machine learning outperformed logistic regression classification even with limit sample size: A model to predict pediatric HIV mortality and clinical progression to AIDS.

Logistic regression (LR) is the most common prediction model in medicine. In recent years, supervised machine learning (ML) methods have gained popularity. However, there are many concerns about ML utility for small sample sizes.

Optimizing the World Health Organization algorithm for HIV vertical transmission risk assessment by adding maternal self-reported antiretroviral therapy adherence.

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) risk assessment algorithm for vertical transmission of HIV (VT) assumes the availability of maternal viral load (VL) result at delivery and early viral control 4 weeks after initiating antiretroviral treatment (ART). However, in many low-and-middle-income countries, VL is often unavailable and mothers' ART adherence may be suboptimal. We evaluate the inclusion of the mothers' self-reported adherence into the established WHO-algorithm to identify infants eligible for enhanced post-natal prophylaxis when mothers' VL result is not available at delivery.

Dolutegravir as First- or Second-Line Treatment for HIV-1 Infection in Children.

Background: Children with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection have limited options for effective antiretroviral treatment (ART).

Methods: We conducted an open-label, randomized, noninferiority trial comparing three-drug ART based on the HIV integrase inhibitor dolutegravir with standard care (non-dolutegravir-based ART) in children and adolescents starting first- or second-line ART. The primary end point was the proportion of participants with virologic or clinical treatment failure by 96 weeks, as estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method.

ODYSSEY clinical trial design: a randomised global study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapy in HIV-positive children, with nested pharmacokinetic sub-studies to evaluate pragmatic WHO-weight-band based dolutegravir dosing.

Background: Dolutegravir (DTG)-based antiretroviral therapy (ART) is highly effective and well-tolerated in adults and is rapidly being adopted globally. We describe the design of the ODYSSEY trial which evaluates the efficacy and safety of DTG-based ART compared with standard-of-care in children and adolescents. The ODYSSEY trial includes nested pharmacokinetic (PK) sub-studies which evaluated pragmatic World Health Organization (WHO) weight-band-based DTG dosing and opened recruitment to children < 14 kg while dosing was in development.