Updated Guidelines for HIV-Associated Opportunistic Infections Released

The first complete update in five years of the U.S. guidelines for preventing and treating HIV-associated opportunistic infections has been released by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in cooperation with the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

The new Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents apply state-of-the-art science and medicine to 29 infectious diseases of concern. More than 140 medical experts contributed their knowledge to this edition of the guidelines, released on April 10.

"The scientific community has developed new and more accurate diagnostic tests for HIV-associated opportunistic infections during the past five years, more effective treatments for these infections and better approaches to preventing them," says Henry Masur, MD, co-chair of the working group that revised the guidelines, chief of the Critical Care Medicine Department in the NIH clinical research hospital and a former president of IDSA. "The updated guidelines outline these advances for physicians and patients across the United States and beyond."

HIV cripples the immune systems of its human hosts, leaving them more vulnerable than the general population to numerous other infectious diseases. These HIV-associated opportunistic infections are a leading cause of hospitalization and death among HIV-infected individuals in the United States.

"Although the incidence rate of HIV-associated opportunistic infections has declined dramatically in the United States, primarily due to advances in antiretroviral therapy, these infections continue to threaten the health of many people infected with HIV," says John T. Brooks, MD, co-author of the guidelines and leader of the HIV Clinical Epidemiology Team in CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. "It is critical that healthcare providers, especially newer clinicians who may have less experience with opportunistic infections, remain able to recognize the signs and symptoms of these infections and know how to provide the most effective preventive care and treatment."