Outcomes of HIV Partner Services for People with Prevalent HIV Infection and Newly Acquired Sexually Transmitted Disease Infection in NYC, 2014

Background:  HIV-infected (HIV+) people who acquire STDs pose a risk for transmission of both HIV and STDs.  Partner services (PS) are a fundamental component of most HIV/STD programs; however PS interviews are resource intensive and their effectiveness must be evaluated so that the resources can be prioritized.  

Methods:  The NYC Bureau of STD (BSTD) routinely provides PS for most new cases of early syphilis.  In January 2014, we began providing PS for people with prevalent HIV infection who were newly diagnosed with gonorrhea (GC) at any BSTD clinic.  We compared the HIV PS outcomes of this new (GC/HIV+) activity to those resulting from routine interviews of EL syphilis/HIV+ persons.

Results:  PS were provided for 184 persons with prevalent HIV infection who were newly diagnosed with GC (n=127) or EL syphilis (n=57) at any BSTD clinic.  All interviewees were male, and 74% reported sex with men.  Overall, 134 partners were elicited: 90 for GC (contact index 0.7) and 44 for EL syphilis (contact index 0.8).  Nearly all (96%) partners were male; and over half (74/134) were known to be HIV+ (52% of GC vs. 61% of EL syphilis).  Eighteen partners were previously HIV- and still HIV- (11 of GC vs. 7 of EL syphilis).  PS interviews identified 2 previously negative, newly HIV+ persons (1 of GC vs. 1 of EL syphilis).   HIV status was unknown for 30% (40/134) of partners (34% of GC vs. 21% of EL syphilis), even though 73% (29/40) could be located.

Conclusions:  Overall, we had modest contact indices and identified few new HIV infections, however, PS were slightly more productive for HIV-EL syphilis co-infected persons than for HIV-GC co-infected persons.  PS provide important opportunities to refer high risk, HIV-negative partners for services such as PrEP, although this group was a small proportion of partners.