Grant: Operating Grant

An increasing number of people are infected with both Hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV. HIV appears to make HCV related liver disease progress more rapidly. Liver disease is now one of the leading causes of illness and death in HIV-HCV-infected persons. By restoring the immune system, it was expected that effective HIV treatments would lead to improved liver health. However, it remains unclear why liver disease continues to be such a large problem in co-infection. We have created a cohort study of 950 HIV-HCV infected persons from 16 centres across Canada to study how HIV and HCV therapy impacts HCV related liver disease. We will look at social and biologic factors that may contribute to liver disease and evaluate non-invasive methods to measure liver health. We will also examine the immune function of participants receiving HIV therapies compared to those not treated. This work will allow a greater understanding of how these two viruses interact to cause disease and will provide insights into to how best to design and target therapies so that in the future, HIV-HCV infected individuals may be able to derive full benefits from the treatment advances being realised for HIV infection.