Expanded antiretroviral treatment, sexual networks, and condom use: Treatment as prevention unlikely to succeed without partner reduction among men who have sex with men in China

BACKGROUND: To project the impact of partner reduction on preventing new HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) under varying conditions of enhanced HIV testing and treatment (T&T) and condom use in Beijing, China. METHODS AND FINDINGS: A complex network model was fitted to predict the number of new HIV infections averted from 2014 to 2023 under four scenarios of sexual behavior risk reduction (S)—S1: Male sexual partners decrease (reduced by a random value m from 1–50) while condom use increases (risk constant p is a random value between 0.2 and 1]); S2: Both sexual partners and condom use decrease (m 1, 50; p 1, 1.8); S3: Sexual partners reduce (m 1, 10) while condom use increases or decreases (p 0.2, 1.8); S4: Only MSM with ≥100 male sexual partners reduce their partners (m 1, 50) while condom use increases (p 0.2, 1). HIV prevalence will reach 23.2% by 2023 among Beijing MSM if T&T remains at the 2013 level. The three most influential factors are: T&T coverage; partner reduction (m); and the background risk (p). Under scenarios 1–4 of sexual behavioral changes with enhanced T&T interventions, the cumulative HIV new infections prevented over the 10 years will be 46.8% for S1 (interquartile range [IQR] 32.4%, 60.1%); 29.7% for S2 (IQR 18.0%, 41.4%), 23.2% for S3 (IQR 12.2%, 37.0%) and 11.6% for S4 (IQR 4.0%, 26.6%), respectively. The reproduction number R(0) could drop below 1 if there were a substantial reduction of male sexual partners and/or expanded condom use. CONCLUSION: Partner reduction is a vital factor within HIV combination interventions to reduce HIV incidence among Beijing MSM, with substantial additional benefits derived from condom use. T&T without substantial partner reduction and increased condom use is less promising unless its implementation were extremely (and improbably) efficient.