The effectiveness of an antibiotic is the subject of a recent, ground-breaking HIV study that may lower the death rate for advanced HIV patients in Africa.
The purpose of the REVIVE trial is to determine whether giving persons with advanced HIV the antibiotic azithromycin once a day for four weeks will successfully reduce their mortality rates.
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a Pan-African network of investigators led by academics from the Population Health Research Institute in Canada and the University of Cape Town will evaluate 8,000 patients in 14 countries for this project.
According to Sean Wasserman, co-principal investigator (PI) of the trial and adjunct associate professor at UCT, the standard of care for patients in Africa will change if azithromycin is proven to be beneficial.
Thus, the goal of this experiment is to find a method or intervention that could lower death rates in a population of individuals with advanced HIV disease. Even after beginning antiretroviral medication, this group of individuals with advanced HIV is at high risk of dying young.
According to Wasserman, “Our whole approach is to concentrate on this group of extremely vulnerable individuals who may benefit from a broad spectrum antibiotic to prevent the occurrence of severe bacterial infection and thereby reduce early mortality.”
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