Two small studies of interferon and ribavirin were presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy which suggested that anti-HCV treatments may not be as effective in co-infected individuals as they are in HIV-negative people. An open label study of combination treatment with alpha interferon/ribavirin or alpha interferon in 20 co-infected individuals found that half achieved undetectable HCV viral load after six months of treatment. People with particular sub-types 3a and 1b were more likely to respond to treatment, although numbers were small and no firm conclusions were drawn from these data. Liver function results improved (Landau 1999).
The second study compared ribavirin/interferon with interferon alone for three months in 21 people. It found that interferon monotherapy had little effect on HCV viral load but that interferon/ribavirin produced reductions in HCV viral load in this HIV-infected group. A key side-effect of this combination was anaemia and a significant CD4 decline from an average of 529 to 277. This fall in CD4 count occurred despite the maintenance of HIV viral suppression and was a side-effect of ribavirin (Dieterich 1999).
For further details of both studies, visit the aidsmap.com review of Hepatitis C.