How to RESPOND to modern challenges for people living with HIV: A profile for a new cohort consortium

Background: the International Cohort Consortium of Infectious Disease (RESPOND) is a collaboration dedicated to research on HIV and other infectious diseases. Methods: RESPOND is a flexible organization, with several independent substudies operating under one shared governance. HIV-related variables, including full antiretroviral therapy (ART) history, are collected annually for all participants and merged with substudy specific data into a shared data pool. Incident clinical events are reported using standardized forms. Prospective follow-up started 1/10/17 (enrolment) with retrospective data collected back to 01/01/12. Results: Overall, 17 cohorts from Europe and Australia provided data on 26,258 people living with HIV (PLWH). The majority (43.3%) of the population were white, with men-sex-with-men accounting for 43.3% of the risk for HIV acquisition. The median age was 48 years (IQR 40–56) and 5.2% and 25.5% were known to be co-infected with hepatitis B or C. While 5.3% were ART-naive, the median duration on ART was 10.1 years (4.8–17.6), with 89.5% having a VL <200 copies/mL and the median CD4 count being 621 cells/µL (438–830). Malignancies (n = 361) and cardiovascular disease (n = 168) were the predominant reported clinical events. Conclusion: RESPOND’s large, diverse study population and standardized clinical endpoints puts the consortium in a unique position to respond to the diverse modern challenges for PLWH.