Role of the Provider in Prevention of HIV Infection and Elimination of Tuberculosis and Syphilis

Primary care providers to persons with HIV disease play a pivotal role in prevention and treatment of HIV infection and related diseases and conditions. National efforts are underway to emphasize and support HIV primary care providers in preventing transmission of HIV, as well as to promote goals in the elimination of tuberculosis and syphilis. Recent disease-specific recommendations have been formulated by the Institute of Medicine in 2 studies—No Time to Lose: Getting More From HIV Prevention and Ending Neglect: The Elimination of Tuberculosis in the United States—and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in The National Plan to Eliminate Syphilis from the United States. It is likely that few of the specific recommendations in these studies and plans are unknown to clinicians. However, many of the recommendations are not always followed in busy clinical practice settings and need to be more rigorously implemented if dramatic reductions in these infections are to be achieved. HIV Prevention