Hello and welcome to Science in 5.
I am Vismita Gupta-Smith and these are WHO's conversations in science.
We are talking to Dr. Meg Doherty
today about COVID-19 and how it impacts people living with HIV.
Welcome, Meg.
Let's start Meg with COVID-19 and the risk that it poses to people
living with HIV.
Thank you for that really important question.
We are becoming more aware and following the data and it's now very
much confirmed that people living with HIV have an increased risk for severe
disease from COVID as well as hospitalizations.
And then once hospitalized, have a 30% increased risk of death.
So this is quite an important new statistic that we are taking seriously
at WHO, but also something that now helps countries and people around the world
to think about prioritizing both testing and treatment and management
of hypertension and diabetes among people living with HIV.
This is also really important because we know in the last couple of years,
during the COVID pandemic, we have seen a reduction in access to
prevention services, testing services for HIV.
And these kinds of services are the ones that we need to restart
and maintain so that all people living with HIV have access to
the antiretrovirals they need, they find out if they're living with HIV and also
now start to be prioritized and have access to COVID-19 vaccines.
Meg, should people living with HIV be prioritised for vaccinations?
Considering that people living with HIV have a 30% increased risk of death
if they are hospitalized and that we know vaccination for COVID protects people
from both having severe disease and hospitalization
and death - absolutely.
People living with HIV should be prioritised for early COVID vaccines.
We at WHO have been looking at the vaccines to see if they're safe among
people living with HIV.
And all vaccines currently right now on the market can be used among people
living with HIV and certainly should provide adequate protection.
There are many studies looking at whether people who have low immunity
or people who have immunosuppression need to have another dose of vaccine.
And those data are not yet clear.
And we'll be looking forward to knowing whether people living with HIV
might need a booster shot in the future.
But what we know right now is most of the world, in the low
and middle-income countries, in Africa that has the highest burden of HIV
they don't even have the first vaccine.
So certainly we urgently need to start vaccinating people around the world
and putting people living with HIV right up there in the line of people
who need vaccines, along with people with comorbidities, who are older,
who are frontline workers.
Meg speak to us a little more about safety of the current batch of vaccines
for people living with HIV.
What we know so far for all the vaccines that are under emergency use
right now around the world, they should all be safe in people living with HIV.
None of them are using live attenuated vaccines approaches which have been
contraindicated in the past for people living with HIV.
All of these vaccines that are out there now should be efficacious.
We want to ensure that people living with HIV are on treatment.
There are some concerns that people who are taking some of the newer
generation vaccines, that it may not be as effective in those who have very
low CD4 counts, people who are not on treatment or have immunosuppression.
But certainly that data is not clear yet.
And we have to follow this forward as we learn more about some of
the clinical trials that are happening in South Africa for some of these
newer generation vaccines.
And we would be very encouraging of people living with HIV to access those
vaccines and not to have any differentiation in terms of whether
or not they have a low CD4, high CD4 or suppress viral load or not.
All should be in line for vaccines.
Thank you, Meg.
That was Science in 5 today.
Until next time then.
Stay safe, stay healthy and stick with science.