Clinical characteristics of overseas-born men who have sex with men (MSM) in the AHOD cohort and implications for clinical practice

In Australia HIV notifications are increasing among overseas-born men who have sex with men (MSM) and particularly among Asian-born MSM.1 Despite the ‘test and treat early’ paradigm in Australia, a steady proportion of people are diagnosed with late HIV infection and a large proportion (35%) of these are from East Asian countries.1 Globally, marginalised populations are reported to experience inequalities in treatment uptake and response. Although these inequalities are not consistent across all ethnic subpopulations,2 and once accounting for CD4 count at diagnosis, ethnicity might not be a factor at all.3 Australian evidence suggests that culturally and/or linguistically diverse populations are less likely to start treatment early irrespective of CD4 cell count at diagnosis,4 but little is known about response once in care. The Australian HIV Observational Database (AHOD) is used to investigate treatment response in overseas-born MSM from non-English-speaking…

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