Gilead Sciencesas part of its commitment to patients’ health, has generated an innovative HIV risk prediction model. This tool identifies people at high risk of having HIV (calibrating the individual risk of each of them), thanks to a screening strategy directed in a certain areathus reducing late diagnosis and avoiding new infections (An HIV person can transmit the HIV virus to another four). The predict model could contribute significantly to the control of infection in Spain, reinforcing global efforts aimed at eliminating HIV epidemic worldwide.
Gilead has counted for its development with Telomera as a technological partner and with a wide team of researchers, among which are experts in infectious and HIV diseases as Miguel García-Deltorohead of the Infectious Diseases Service of the University General Hospital of Valencia, and Arkaitz imazCoordinator of the HIV and STD Unit of the Bellvitge University Hospital. Analyzing only information about certain diseases previously diagnosed with a person, age and sex at birth, the model has demonstrated its ability to detect more than 70% of HIV cases of any population, screening less than 4% of people and achieving a prevalence of HIV of more than 2.5%. These results show the opportunity to optimize the use of health resources, reducing the number of people to whom it is necessary to perform an HIV test, while increasing the percentage of new diagnoses and, with it, the efficiency of the health system.
To Luis Armenterosdirector of the HIV unit of Gilead Sciences in Spain and Portugal, “this development is another demonstration of Gilead’s commitment to people with HIV. Our company has been present since its inception in the great milestones of this epidemic and we continue to be, providing innovative solutions to address the still current challenge of HIV hidden infection and its late diagnosis.”
This advance is a crucial step in the early detection of HIV, an infection with which it is estimated that 11,000 people (7.5% of people with HIV in our country) In addition, the late diagnosis, which in 2023 was present in 49% of the new cases, is associated with a greater progression of infection, an increase in health costs and greater morbidity and mortality. As described José Luis EnriquezCEO and founder of Telomera, “The model arose from a real clinical concern: many HIV diagnostic opportunities are being lost, especially in advanced phases of the infection. The main challenge is to identify people with HIV who had gone unnoticed in the health system.”
He HIV risk prediction model It has been generated so that it can be integrated into electronic medical history systems, thus allowing the automation of the care process so that it is the computer system that can alert the clinician who attends a person with a high risk of having HIV, reducing the lost opportunities of diagnosis and improving the efficiency of the health system. Predict It is a great advance since, as he points out Imaz“The results of these initial studies indicate that they may be able to identify candidates to do the HIV test in a very efficient way since it allows focusing the search in higher risk groups in which the prevalence would be, according to the model, very high.”
