International Journal of STD & AIDS > Volume 20, Number 9 > Pp. 634-637

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Original research articles

Herpes simplex virus type 2 and HIV infection among US military personnel: implications for health prevention programmes

C T Bautista MSc ^* , D E Singer MD MPH ^*, R J O'Connell MD ^* , N Crum-Cianflone MD MPH  , B K Agan MD , J A Malia MS ^*, J L Sanchez MD MPH , S A Peel PhD ^*, N L Michael MD PhD ^* and P T Scott MD MPH ^*

^* US Military HIV Research Program, Division of Retrovirology, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), 1 Taft Court, Suite 250, Rockville MD 20850; Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD; HIV Clinic, Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA; DoD Global Emerging Infections Surveillance & Response System, WRAIR, Silver Spring, MD, USA

Correspondence to: C T Bautista Email: cbautista{at}hivresearch.org

US military personnel are routinely screened for HIV infection. Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) is a risk factor for HIV acquisition. To determine the association between HSV-2 and HIV, a matched case-control study was conducted among US Army and Air Force servicemembers with incident HIV infections (cases) randomly matched with two HIV-uninfected servicemembers (controls) between 2000 and 2004. HSV-2 prevalence was significantly higher among cases (30.3%, 138/456) than among controls (9.7%, 88/912, P < 0.001). HSV-2 was strongly associated with HIV in univariate (odds ratio [OR] = 4.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.1–5.8) and multiple analyses (adjusted [OR] = 3.9, 95% CI = 2.8–5.6). The population attributable risk percentage of HIV infection due to HSV-2 was 23%. Identifying HSV-2 infections may afford the opportunity to provide targeted behavioural interventions that could decrease the incidence of HIV infections in the US military population; further studies are needed.

Key Words: HSV-2 • HIV • herpes • co-infection • military • epidemiology • United States

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