ART reduces HIV in the female reproductive tract

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) affects the way HIV disseminates and establishes infection in the female reproductive tract, which could have significant implications for future HIV prevention, vaccine and cure studies, because vaginal transmission accounts for most HIV infections worldwide, according to investigators in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. “Surprisingly, it does not matter how a woman is exposed to HIV—vaginally, rectally, etc.—the virus goes very quickly to the female reproductive tract,” said J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, PhD, study co-author and a professor of medicine in the Center for AIDS Research, the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases, and the Division of Infectious Diseases at UNC School of Medicine. “Your body’s CD4 T cells, which are the cells HIV infects, also migrate to the female reproductive tract shortly after exposure. It is like putting more kindling on a smoldering fire,” he...