David Cooper, Principal Investigator
University of New South Wales
Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia

Treat Asia Website

The overall goals of the Asia-Pacific HIV Research Collaboration are to assess HIV disease and antiretroviral therapy outcomes in adults and children in the Asia-Pacific, and to conduct multi-regional cohort analyses to compare these outcomes with global populations.  The scientific objectives will be achieved through four core areas of observational research utilizing established national and regional databases, and study cohorts:

i)      Adult HIV treatment outcomes studied through prospective observational cohorts in Asia and Australia (APHOD)

ii)     Pediatric HIV treatment outcomes studied through a prospective observational cohort in Asia (TApHOD)

iii)    The epidemiology of HIV-related cancer and cancer risk, analyzed through a) national cancer, death, and health insurance registries in Taiwan and Australia, and b) human papillomavirus (HPV) study cohorts of HIV-infected and at-risk adolescents and MSM in Thailand

iv)   National-level HIV treatment outcomes in the China National ART Database.

These cohorts and databases provide unique opportunities to characterize regional treatment experiences of the most complex and highly ART-experienced adults and children in Asia, and include patients from 61 research sites at 55 institutions from a wide variety of geographic, social, and economic settings in 14 countries within South, Southeast, and East Asia.

Through a model of intra-regional partnerships, investigators of the Asia-Pacific HIV Research Collaboration will share technical knowledge across a network of research sites to conduct broad regional analyses.  This will include a novel partnership with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention to identify best practices and highlight challenges in program retention and long-term treatment success in China’s National ART Database program.  Overall study recruitment will increase, and data collection will further expand in several innovative areas to examine factors driving the epidemic (i.e., male-to-male sex, injection drug use), chronic AIDS- and non-AIDS-related events and risk factors, and behavioral factors affecting adolescent outcomes.  Analyses will also assess response to and durability of ART, the impact of co-infections (i.e., hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, HPV), toxicity of first- and second-line regimens, and cancer risk.

Successful implementation of these studies will build up an evidence base to inform, monitor, and improve the performance of HIV management practices and programs; advise national and regional treatment guidelines; and improve the performance of regional and global research, adding to global understanding of HIV/AIDS.