HIV/AIDS: Epidemiology, Drug Resistance, Treatment and Prevention

Dear Colleagues,

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is still a major public health concern worldwide. In 2022, there were 39 million individuals living with HIV, with 1.3 million new infections, 630,000 individuals dying from AIDS-related illness and 29.8 million individuals accessing antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimens.

With the increasing number of people under ART regimens and the improved genetic barrier of ARV regimens, the clinical outcomes of HIV-1-infected individuals significantly improved, thereby decreasing both mortality and morbidity rates. However, the emergence of HIV drug resistance is possible due to the fast evolutionary rate of HIV, its high level of genetic diversity and the selective pressure induced by ART.

Although some progress has been made toward achieving the UNAIDS goals for 2030 in some world regions, other regions are off-track. The transmission of HIV-1 is still occurring in the general population, and especially in specific populations such as men who have sex with men (MSM), intravenous drug users (IVDUs) and migrants.

While important and innovative prevention strategies, such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), have shown success in preventing HIV-1 infection, their effectiveness in real-world situations is still under study. On the other hand, despite advances in HIV-1 treatment and prevention, the rate of HIV-1 drug resistance is still high and the emergence of drug resistance to second-generation integrase inhibitors is a major threat.

In this Special Issue, we want to invite you to submit your research to improve knowledge and spread awareness about this important topic that is still ongoing and can impact many lives.

Both original research and review articles are welcome. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Epidemiology of HIV;
• Treatment and prevention of HIV;
• HIV drug resistance;
• HIV transmission and dynamics;
• Artificial intelligence (AI) applied to HIV molecular epidemiology, treatment and prevention.

Dr. Marta Pingarilho
Dr. Mafalda N. S. Miranda
Dr. Ana Barroso Abecasis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pathogens is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• epidemiology of HIV
• HIV drug resistance
• HIV transmission
• HIV treatment
• HIV prevention