# Evaluation of the Interplay between HIV and COVID-19 in a large urban safety-net HIV clinic

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $798,527

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ ABSTRACT
 An unprecedented public health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding worldwide and the
United States has been the epicenter of the pandemic since March 26, 2020. No prior global pandemic of
this scale has overlapped temporally with the HIV pandemic. Despite this, given the breathtaking speed at
which the pandemic has progressed, very little is known about the interplay between HIV and SARS-CoV-2
given that COVID-19 has only recently entered areas of high HIV prevalence. The COVID-19 pandemic is
threatening worldwide gains in UNAIDS 90:90:90 targets for HIV by disrupting health systems, economies, and
the health of people with HIV. San Francisco was the first city in the U.S. to impose “shelter in place”
public health measures on March 16, 2020. Given the need to limit in-person visits to counter the spread of
COVID-19, research on the impact on HIV outcomes, retention in care, and sociobehavioral outcomes will be
crucial to develop interventions to attenuate COVID-19's deleterious impact and to plan for future pandemics.
 Whether people with HIV (PWH) are more or less susceptible to COVID-19 or severe disease is unknown;
some of the risk factors for severe COVID-19 (older age, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease) are more
prevalent among PWH but HIV medications such as tenofovir and its metabolites could be protective. PWH in
low-income settings have marginal housing and food insecurity, increasing transmission risk. Given the impact
of HIV on immune responses, it is also important to understand if PWH will have less durable immunity against
COVID-19 following infection. Finally, the impact of the COVID-19's disruption of medical and social services
for PWH needs urgent study, both during the crisis and in its aftermath, since COVID-19 has the potential to
eradicate the progress made on Ending the HIV Epidemic to date.
 This proposal will answer three vital questions concerning the interplay between the two viruses. The
site of the study will be at the Ward 86 HIV Clinic, a large safety-net clinic for publicly-insured patients with HIV
in San Francisco, near the neighborhoods experiencing concentrated COVID-19 epidemics. Aim 1 will provide
novel, urgently needed insights into how SARS-CoV-2 infection risk, prevalence and clinical outcomes vary by
HIV status and/or antiretroviral regimen (i.e. tenofovir). Aim 2 will explore whether HIV infection will impair
humoral or T-cell responses to COVID-19, providing insights for therapeutic and vaccine development. Aim 3
data will evaluate the impact of disruption of healthcare and social support systems on PWH, including viral
suppression; retention in care; hospitalizations, co-morbidity outcomes, and non-COVID-19 related death;
healthcare utilization during COVID019; and socio-behavioral outcomes during and after social distancing to
assess isolation, food insecurity, stress, substance use, stigma, and resilience. Harnessing, the research
infrastructure of ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10669735
- **Project number:** 5R01AI158013-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Monica Gandhi
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $798,527
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10669735

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10669735, Evaluation of the Interplay between HIV and COVID-19 in a large urban safety-net HIV clinic (5R01AI158013-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10669735. Licensed CC0.

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