Email Updates

You are here

Home

6 January 2017 VOLUME 18 ISSUE 1

Media Coverage

  • Could six shots a year prevent HIV infection?

    A new injectable drug could change the face of HIV prevention and the revolution might start right here in South Africa.

    January 6, 2017
    Bhekisisa

  • Gates Foundation to invest up to $140 million in HIV prevention device

    Intarcia Therapeutics is developing implantable pump which holds six or 12 months’ supply of medicine.

    January 6, 2017
    PrEP
    Wall Street Journal

  • An implant could revolutionize the way we protect ourselves from HIV

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is investing up to $140 million in the creation of a subdermal implant that can continuously release PrEP for up to one year before needing to be replaced.

    January 6, 2017
    PrEP
    Huffington Post

  • The UK’s largest sexual health clinic saw a 40% drop in new HIV infections this year

    The clinic.... the largest sexual health clinic in the UK, saw an unprecedented 40% drop in new HIV diagnoses this year....It therefore looks very possible that PrEP may have been a significant contributor to the drop in diagnoses, despite the fact that it is still not generally available in the UK.

    January 5, 2017
    aidsmap

  • The ‘final nail in the coffin’ for Aids?

    "PrEP drugs cannot put an end to HIV/Aids on their own”, Dr [Anthony] Fauci warns. “They will have to be coupled with other approaches including a vaccine that prevents infection. “If deployed alongside our current armoury of HIV prevention tools,” he says, the combination “could be the final nail in the coffin for HIV”.

    January 5, 2017
    Financial Times

  • Obama gives Kenya AIDS fight $306 million boost

    Outgoing US President Barack Obama has given Kenya’s fight against HIV/Aids a huge boost with the injection of $306 million (Sh31.4 billion) into treatment and prevention programmes, which will be rolled out in 23 counties across the country over a five-year period,...according to procurement documents by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).

    January 5, 2017
    Business Daily

  • Global health is good business — Trump should get in the prosperity

    As President-elect Trump considers submitting a fiscal year 2018 budget request to Congress, scores of government funding issues will be intensely debated. America’s investment in global health is one area that should stand outside the political fray.

    January 5, 2017
    The Hill

  • Scaling up adult male circumcision calculated to have HIV prevention benefits additional to those seen with 90-90-90 treatment target Investigators claim VMMC scale-up plus 90-90-90 could end HIV, not just AIDS

    The model was based on rollout of VMMC to cover 90% of males aged 15-49 years. The investigators modelled three viral suppression scenarios, two of which involved viral suppression rates below the 90% target. In all three scenarios, male circumcision would reduce HIV incidence to at least levels predicted with 90% viral suppression, even when suppression rates were as low as 75%.

    January 5, 2017
    Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision
    aidsmap

  • Over 950 HIV professionals sign letter to Congress urging access to care

    Concerned about their patients’ access to care, HIV professionals all over the country are urging Congress not to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a suitable replacement, and to sustain a federal commitment to Medicaid. More than 950 physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and other medical professionals from 37 states and the District of Columbia signed a letter sent to Congress on the first day the Republican-led legislature was back in session.

    January 4, 2017
    Healio

  • No decrease in HIV infections among gay men per CDC data; more PrEP coverage needed

    This month, the CDC released the Annual HIV Surveillance Report—a detailed report that serves as our primary source of who’s getting HIV in the U.S. year by year...Overall, the number of HIV infections every year is going down. But among men who have sex with men, the number of new HIV infections has remained surprisingly stable....What’s going on...?

    January 4, 2017
    Beta Blog

  • STI diagnoses rise among PrEP users in a northern California health system

    Among a large group of people accessing Truvada as pre-exposure prophylaxis from a Northern California health system, quarterly rates of rectal gonorrhea and urethral chlamydia increased steadily and about doubled after one year....The cohort study also found that older individuals on PrEP were at greater risk of reduced kidney function.

    January 4, 2017
    POZ

  • Scientists develop new antibiotic for gonorrhea

    Scientists at the University of York have harnessed the therapeutic effects of carbon monoxide-releasing molecules to develop a new antibiotic which could be used to treat the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea,...the second most common sexually transmitted infection in England [and] becoming untreatable.

    January 4, 2017
    Science Daily

  • HIV positive patients now have easier access to viral load testing facilities

    Viral load testing...is currently available in only three cities of Pakistan. To fill this gap, the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) will now be availing the Aga Khan University Hospital’s (AKUH) 200 plus nationwide network of collection units to collect blood samples from far-flung areas. Tests will be performed free of cost at the state-of-the-art AKUH laboratory in Karachi and results shared with treatment centres as well as NACP.

    January 4, 2017
    The News

  • WHO delivers anti-retroviral drugs to Libyans

    Libya’s collapsed medical services, one of the consequences of the on-going civil war and political unrest,...have forced the WHO to distribute anti-retroviral drugs to Libyans living with HIV....The agency is working closely with the health ministry to develop and implement surveillance and health system assessment mechanisms....[and] reinstate the HIV-related infrastructure halted at the start of the war in 2011.

    January 4, 2017
    Channel Africa

  • O'Neill Institute, NMAC release first of two reports to help prevent HIV in communities of color

    Two HIV policy experts from the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law [School] working in partnership with NMAC have released the first of two reports to help prevent HIV in communities of color. The "Blueprint for HIV Biomedical Prevention: State of the State" was released on December 3, 2016 at the National HIV PrEP Summit in San Francisco.

    January 3, 2017
    News-Medical

  • City closes needle exchange

    After 26 years of pioneering efforts to help intravenous drug users avoid contracting HIV/AIDS, New Haven government is getting out of the needle exchange business....Mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer...said the city’s health department is handing off the program — and the state money that funds it —to the Yale School of Medicine, which will run it out of its existing community health care van.

    January 3, 2017
    New Haven Independent

  • The church leader who actually wants Africans to use condoms

    A Christian youth leader is taking on one of Malawi's oldest taboos in an attempt to help tackle the country's HIV pandemic. Chatonda Mhango, youth chairman of one of the country's largest Presbyterian ministries, wants contraception to be discussed as a means of HIV and Aids prevention in churches. Yet the idea is widely condemned by churches across sub-Saharan Africa because it is seen as synonymous with promiscuity.

    January 3, 2017
    Male and Female Condoms
    Times of India

  • 2016: an HIV year in review

    2016 has been an exciting year for HIV research and news. Here's a look at some of the top HIV stories this past year: http://www.hivequal.org/hiv-equal-online/2016-an-hiv-year-in-review?slide=1.

    January 3, 2017
    HIV Equal

  • Why is a new HIV drug only being tested on people who were born male?

    Researchers are starting clinical studies on a new form of HIV prevention that would only have to be taken once every two months. This would be a leap forward for medicine, but it apparently isn’t reaching all prospective patients equally: No cisgender women or trans men will be included....The reason is because gay men and trans women are still the most vulnerable populations for HIV, according to health advocates.

    January 3, 2017
    Outline

  • New year, new possibly discriminatory HIV registry in Russia

    Though roughly one percent of Russians are HIV-positive,...Russia eschews more modern tactics of fighting HIV and instead favors a zero-tolerance policy for drug use and 'moral education,' the preferred cure of the Orthodox Church. Now, however, it has added a third tactic: a national registry of HIV patients, launched with the new year.

    January 3, 2017
    Foreign Policy

  • Single shot at doctor's office may be future of HIV prevention

    [Truvada], the daily [HIV prevention] pill, may be overshadowed by an even simpler method — a single flu shot-like injection at the doctor's office, once every two months....The NIH announced last week that it was entering the first-ever global clinical trial of an injectable HIV-prevention drug called cabotegravir, in eight countries...in the Americas, Africa, and Asia...., pulling from groups with the highest rates of new infections.

    January 2, 2017
    NBC Connecticut

  • Jared Baeten—aiming to see off HIV

    “The last person that I train, I want that training to be in something other than HIV”, says Jared Baeten. Speaking to the HIV Research for Prevention Conference (HIVR4P) in Chicago, IL, USA, where he has brought a 12-strong team of his researchers, Baeten explains: “When that time comes, I want HIV to have been eliminated as public health threat, so we can focus on other diseases”.

    January 2, 2017
    Lancet

  • Viral load and some hormonal and metabolic issues in women

    HIV infection has always been associated with reports of complex hormonal and metabolic abnormalities,...the majority...in HIV-positive men. A team of...Vancouver researchers have focused on measuring...blood samples from HIV-positive women [and] found that factors such as increasing age, body mass index and, in some cases, having a high viral load prior to starting ART, were associated with hormonal and metabolic abnormalities.

    December 30, 2016
    BodyPro

  • This week in HIV research

    Another individual may have been cured of HIV after receiving a stem-cell transplant from a donor with a natural resistance to the virus, similar to the..."Berlin Patient"....Another study finds that long-acting injectable rilpivirine (Edurant) significantly suppresses HIV replication in rectal tissue. And inflammation levels in women do not seem to decrease as much as levels in men after achieving viral suppression, a study suggests.

    December 30, 2016
    BodyPro

  • HIV cases surpass a million in Russia, but little is done

    The number of Russians who have received a positive HIV diagnosis passed the one million mark this year. There is, however, little indication that the government will commit adequate resources to stem acceleration of the virus from high-risk groups into the general population....[T]he combination of indifference toward victims, government financial austerity, hostility toward foreign funds and a powerful camp of AIDS deniers all amounts to lack of a coherent national effort.

    December 28, 2016
    NY Times

  • 2016's top 5 advances in infectious diseases

    MedPage Today asked specialists in infectious diseases around the country to tell us what they thought were the most important clinical developments in 2016. These were the most commonly mentioned, along with excerpts supporting their nominations:...[Number] 3. New HIV Strategies.

    December 27, 2016
    MedPage Today

  • 2016: reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic

    June's UK/EU Referendum precipitated.. Priti Patel's appointment as secretary of state for international development. She announced more action to curb corruption by increasing accountability and transparency and demanding UK aid is strictly linked to results,...demonstrated in September when the UK pledged £1.1 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria only if several conditions around transparency and effectiveness were met.

    December 21, 2016
    Thomson Reuters

  • Co-morbidities are common and rising among people with HIV in the US

    People living with HIV are increasingly experiencing a range of non-AIDS-related co-morbidities as the population ages, including cardiovascular disease, kidney impairment and bone loss leading to fractures, according to research presented at the IDWeek 2016 meeting in New Orleans in October.

    December 19, 2016
    aidsmap

  • Link found between HIV treatment, neuronal degeneration

    Certain protease inhibitors, among the most effective HIV drugs, lead to the production of the peptide beta amyloid, often associated with Alzheimer's disease, and may be the cause of cognitive problems, report researchers...from the University of Pennsylvania, [who] have now pinpointed some of the key players in causing neuronal damage.

    December 16, 2016
    Science Daily

  • 2016 top treatment stories

    Here are the treatment news stories with the most views this year.

    December 12, 2016
    POZ

  • Leading African academics quiz Bill Gates on HIV/Aids and the role of philanthropy

    Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates sat down to answer questions from African academics about HIV/AIDS.

    November 30, 2016
    Mail&Guardian Africa

  • Hundreds attend global LGBT rights conference in Bangkok

    LGBT rights advocates and allies from all over the world have gathered in Bangkok....for the 28th ILGA World Conference.

    November 30, 2016
    Washington Blade

  • Is the HIV prevention pill a 'magic bullet'?

    PrEP is not a magic bullet. But we won’t end the HIV epidemic without it.

    November 30, 2016
    Bhekisisa

  • HIV self-test kits may speed up diagnosis but they're not for 'the morning after'

    A growing range of HIV self-test (HIVST] kits, however, are bringing renewed hope of achieving the 90-90-90 targets....But it is a largely untested technology and, as a result, the WHO has published new guidelines for its implementation....[and] joined with UNITAID and non-profit PSI to run an HIVST project called STAR...in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, using a range of devices to test how they can be distributed and used in communities.

    November 29, 2016
    Deutsche Welle

  • HIV/AIDS in Venezuela 'impossible to control,' health group warns

    The Venezuelan Society of Infectious Diseases, SVI, warns that the lives of HIV patients are in danger due to shortages of medicine and unscheduled treatment changes that make HIV/AIDS "impossible to control"....In the past year, serious shortages of anti-retroviral medications...have "exacerbated" and threatened the lives of Venezuela's HIV-positive population, SVI said.

    November 8, 2016
    UPI

Published Research

Announcements