Amplified HIV transmission during early-stage infection.

Proportion of HIV transmission events according to time from infection, if the seroconverter is assumed to have only 1 subsequent sex partner (white bars) or if all subsequent sexual contacts are with susceptible individuals (black bars). Assumptions include that the time from infection to death is 10 years and that transmission does not occur ,during the 5 months before death. 6 months to 7.9 years Time since infection study design and methodology and suggest that the field must move forward without preconceived bias as to which results will be considered valid. References 1. Halstead SB. Measuring dengue enhancing an-tibodies: caveats. al. Dengue virus (DV) enhancing antibody activity in preillness plasma does not predict subsequent disease severity or viremia in secondary DV infection. DS. Antibody-dependent enhancement ofden-gue virus growth in human monocytes as a risk factor for dengue hemorrhagic fever. Am JTrop Dengue viremia titer, antibody response pattern , and virus serotype correlate with disease severity. J Infect Dis 2000; 181:2-9. 6. Libraty DH, Endy TP, Houng H-SH, et al. Differing influences of virus burden and immune activation on disease severity in secondary den-gue-3 virus infections.lationship of preexisting dengue virus (DV) neutralizing antibody levels to viremia and severity of disease in a prospective cohort study of DV infection in Thailand. To the Editor-Effective preventive interventions against heterosexual HIV transmission rely on an accurate understanding of HIV transmission dynamics. A key question is how the rate of transmission of HIV per coital act varies during the course of infection. Few empirical data have been published on this issue, and we are dependent mostly on the careful longitudinal studies performed in the Rakai district of Uganda. In a recent issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Wawer et al. [1] presented an elegant analysis of retrospective data on the Rakai study cohort. From 235 mo-nogamous HIV-negative partners of HIV-infected index cases, they obtained estimates of the transmission rate per coital act according to stage of HIV infection. The highest transmission rate, 8/1 000 co-ital acts, was observed during the first 5 months after seroconversion, falling to-1/ 1000 coital acts during the long period of asymptomatic infection and increasing thereafter to 4/1 000 coital acts during late-stage infection, from 6 to 15 months before the death of the index case. No estimates are presented for the last 5 months before death, although the authors sug-o If only 1 sex partner First 5 months gest …