Antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV in Haiti has paid off in dividends comparable to those seen in the United States, The New York Times reports. Publishing a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) with their findings, researchers followed for 10 years a group of 910 people with HIV in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, who started ARVs between 2003 and 2014.

Fifty-five percent (504) of the cohort was female, the median age was 39 and the median CD4 count at treatment initiation was 131. About half of them earned less than $1 per day.

Ten years after starting treatment, 53 percent (482) of the cohort was alive and in care, 27 percent (246) was dead, 12 percent (111) was lost to follow-up and 8 percent (71) had transferred to another clinic.

The researchers used three different methods to estimate the 10-year survival rate among this group, resulting in estimates of 71 percent, 67 percent and 63 percent. This estimate range put the cohort on par with the survival rate of gay men who first began combination ARV treatment in the mid-1990s.

To read the New York Times article, click here.

To read the NEJM letter, click here.