The slowdown of new infections by human retroviruses has reached a plateau in Spain

Abstract

The 2022 annual meeting of the HTLV & HIV-2 Spanish Network was held in Madrid on December 14. We summarize here the main information presented and discussed at the workshop and review time trends for human retroviral infections in Spain. As transmissible agents, infections by human retroviruses are of obligatory declaration.Until the end of 2022, the Spanish national registry had recorded 451 cases of HTLV-1, 821 of HTLV-2, and 416 of HIV-2. For HIV-1, estimates are of 150 000 people currently living with HIV-1 and 60 000 cumulative deaths due to AIDS.During year 2022, new diagnoses in Spain were of 22 for HTLV-1, 6 for HTLV-2, and 7 for HIV-2. The last updated figures for HIV-1 are from 2021 and counted 2786 new diagnoses. The slowdown in yearly infections for HIV-1 in Spain points out that new strategies are needed to achieve the United Nations 95-95-95 targets by 2025.

HTLV infection in persons with sexually transmitted diseases in Spain

“…A rebound in STIs following the relief of social isolation measures taken to curb the COVID-19 pandemic has been noticed worldwide (21,22). Even before, STIs had been on the rise along with a loss of fear of acquiring HIV, as a compensatory effect of the widespread use of PrEP (23)(24)(25)(26).…”