Autonomous Targeting of Infectious Superspreaders Using Engineered Transmissible Therapies

Metzger, Vincent T.; Lloyd-Smith, James O.; Weinberger, Leor S.

Any intervention against HIV is likely to be administered in the context of the existing 'standard of care': ART. Since ART halts HIV transmission, ART would also halt TIP transmission from an individual, leading to the potential that the TIP intervention could be severely hampered. However, the TIP's ability to concentrate in highest-risk groups (see next paragraph), where ART is at best the target coverage fraction (e.g. 75%), would allow TIP intervention to maintain efficacy, reduce HIV/AIDS disease prevalence, and reduce AIDS deaths, more effectively than ART alone, even under optimistic coverage scenarios for ART campaigns (Figure 3c-d) . Thus, ART would not interfere with TIP intervention at the population scale, and TIPs could be used as a powerful complement to ART and pharmaceutical treatments in general.