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1 April 2016 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 13

Media Coverage

  • Ward Cates: Physician, scientist, champion of women’s health, global health, and social good

    Dr. Cates, an international leader in reproductive health and HIV prevention research, died on March 17, leaving a legacy of advances in global health that...will be felt for years to come. His obituary told the story of a career, begun in the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion, shaped by some of the great health challenges of his time, that in turn gathered impetus to shape answers to those challenges based on evidence and equity.

    March 31, 2016
    Science Speaks

  • Awareness raising sessions mark safer sex week

    The HIV-AIDS prevention and control programme of the Ministry of Health has launched its ‘ABCD of Safer Sex Week’ with awareness raising sessions in secondary schools, professional centres like the Seychelles Polytechnic and work institutions on Mahé and Praslin....Education sessions will be organised to involve the younger generation in understanding the essence of safer sex and help disseminate messages to other young people. Different workplaces have already come forward with sessions for presentations to their employees.

    March 31, 2016
    Seychelles Nation

  • Empowering women to prevent HIV infection in Africa

    'Until we have eradicated AIDS by finding a vaccine or a cure, then I think my job is not done', exclaimed Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim as she accepted a l'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award last week. The award recognizes her profound contribution to the understanding of HIV infection and spread, as well as her relentless efforts to empower women to help prevent HIV infection in Africa.

    March 31, 2016
    International Travel News

  • Advocates decry insurer charges for AIDS drugs in Minnesota

    In a report provided this month to the Star Tribune, researchers from Harvard Law School and the Minnesota AIDS Project highlight health plan options on the state’s MNsure exchange that feature high degrees of “cost-sharing” for medications used by people with HIV. The report, which also looked at hepatitis C medications, is one of the latest to examine how health insurers in different states are covering HIV.

    March 31, 2016
    Star Tribune

  • Uber for birth control and HIV prevention pills: New app delivers contraception to your door in just 24 hours

    Nurx, available in New York and California, offers three-monthly supplies of birth control pills, the patch, the ring, and emergency contraception pills. On Tuesday the app added Truvada, HIV prevention pill, to its stock

    March 30, 2016
    Daily Mail Online

  • Search is on for quick and accurate measures of HIV incidence to assess impacts of interventions

    In the global HIV arena, where incidence is a critical indicator used to gauge the impact of a number of ongoing U.S. supported interventions — but where years can lapse between infection and diagnosis — getting accurate and rapid measures of incidence is critical and complicated....A reliable way to measure incidence, say researchers for FIND (Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics), ...factors in viral load and immune response test results to determine the recency of infections.

    March 30, 2016
    Science Speaks

  • In a first, liver and kidney from HIV-infected donor are transplanted into HIV-positive patients

    In a first that gives HIV-infected patients yet another chance for long lives, surgeons at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center have transplanted a kidney and a liver from a dead donor who was HIV-positive into two HIV-positive recipients....The experimental procedure follows the 2013 enactment of the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, or HOPE, which repealed the ban on using such organs for transplantation.

    March 30, 2016
    LA Times

  • HIV treatment improves liver function

    People who start HIV treatment usually see long-term improvements in their liver function, especially if their viral load is suppressed, a new study shows. The researchers included data on liver function four years before treatment, one year before, two years after, and five years after. The study lends support to the idea that immune deficiency or HIV replication can damage the liver.

    March 30, 2016
    aidsmap

  • Gene therapy snips HIV out of infected cells and makes uninfected cells resistant

    For the first time, researchers have used a gene-editing technique already used to produce cells resistant to HIV infection to target HIV-infected cells....It produced positive results in a laboratory-generated CD4-cell analogue and in actual CD4 cells, both HIV-uninfected ones grown in the laboratory, and HIV-infected ones taken from four patients with HIV. This... study takes us one step closer to a therapy that could be administered as an injection.

    March 30, 2016
    aidsmap

  • 2 HIV drugs in Thomson Reuters list of 7 blockbuster medicines to watch in 2016

    Occupying the second and third spots on the list, developed by Thomson Reuters, are HIV drugs by Gilead Sciences....As longevity of HIV patients continue to improve and a large number become eligible for retroviral drugs, the two new TAF-based medications are forecast to enjoy sales of $2 billion and $1.57 billion, respectively.

    March 29, 2016
    International Business Times

  • Mozambique's enduring discrimination leaves gay men untreated for HIV

    Despite a veneer of progressive policymaking, bias against the rising number of men with HIV remains commonplace in Mozambique, deterring many from seeking treatment....Aside from being demoralising, discrimination against men who have sex with men is jeopardising government efforts to reduce the high incidence of HIV and Aids. At 11.5%, Mozambique has one of the 10 highest HIV rates in the world....Without access to hospital testing and treatment services, the number will continue to rise.

    March 29, 2016
    Guardian

  • Enzyme may reduce risk of cardiovascular disease caused by HIV medications

    Antiviral medications are used to control [HIV] and prevent its progression to AIDS. Although antivirals improve health and increase survival for people with HIV, their use also has been linked to the development of cardiovascular disease. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine have identified an enzyme that may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease caused by HIV medications.

    March 28, 2016
    Science Daily

  • HIV/AIDS advocates can 'unite to end TB' for common goals

    Collaboration between the HIV and TB communities has led to multiple innovations in research and therapeutics to understand drug interactions and develop treatment guides for HIV-TB co-infected patients. This partnership has been essential to the 34% reduction in TB-related deaths for people living with HIV observed since 2004. Despite these efforts and notable progress, TB remains on the margins of public awareness and political concern.

    March 28, 2016
    Huffington Post

  • US scientists develop mouse model to test Zika vaccines, drugs

    US scientists have identified a genetically modified strain of mice that develop Zika, an important tool needed for testing vaccines and medicines to treat the virus that is rapidly spreading across the Americas and the Caribbean. Early tests on the mice show the virus growing in the testes, offering clues about how a virus typically spread by mosquito bites can be transmitted sexually.

    March 28, 2016
    Reuters

  • Zika study could help overcome an obstacle to vaccine research

    Research into drugs or vaccines that might work against Zika has been hampered because there have been no approved animal models in which to test them....In the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, virologists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston announced that they had found a type of immune-deficient mice that lost weight, became lethargic and died when infected....The virus became concentrated in the brains and testes, reflecting the damage it is thought to cause in humans.

    March 28, 2016
    NY Times

  • Cuba's headstart on finding a cure for AIDs

    The Cuban government responded in dramatically different fashion than the U.S., forcibly quarantining anybody who tested positive for HIV....In this project, reporter Rebecca Sananes shares a chapter of medical history in which Cuba chose a policy diametrically opposite to America’s.

    March 25, 2016
    Pulitzer Center

  • HOPE for the vaginal ring: follow-up studies on new HIV prevention method for women announced

    More than 300 members of the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) were gathered in a hotel conference room in Rockville, Maryland, earlier this month and, somewhat unexpectedly, the assembled scientists had something to celebrate.

    March 25, 2016
    Microbicides
    The Body Pro

  • Dual-site HPV infections rare, but risky for new partners

    Having a new sexual partner in the last year increased the risk of developing an HPV infection in both vaginal and oral locations, regardless of HPV serotype, and having more than two oral sex partners in the past year increased the risk of developing HPV infections in both areas with the same serotype....Dual-site infections, with concordant as well as discordant serotypes, were most common among young, low-income women.

    March 24, 2016
    MedPage Today

  • Slashing aid to emerging economies undercuts HIV fight, activists warn

    The abrupt withdrawal of international aid money from countries that graduate to middle-income status is hindering the fight against HIV and Aids, leaving already marginalised groups even more vulnerable, and could undermine the delivery of the sustainable development goals, campaigners have warned.

    March 24, 2016
    The Guardian

  • Older people with HIV face different long-term health challenges

    Researchers at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and with the Public Health Agency of Canada collaborated on a massive data analysis project that collected health-related information from more than one million people, a small fraction of whom (less than 1%) had HIV....Researchers found that, overall, HIV-positive people had “more co-infections but fewer chronic diseases” compared to HIV-negative people. Furthermore, they found that HIV-positive people were generally more likely to have experienced “depression and social isolation and the use of psychotropic medicines.”

    March 23, 2016
    CATIE News

  • Botswana study shows 96 percent rate of viral suppression for patients on HIV drugs

    Botswana appears to have achieved very high rates of HIV diagnosis, treatment, and viral suppression--much better than most Western nations, including the United States--according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues in Botswana. The findings suggest that even in countries with limited resources, strong treatment programs can help make significant headway against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

    March 23, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Chemists develop an ultra-sensitive test for cancers, HIV

    Catching a disease in its earliest stages can lead to more effective therapies. A new technique developed by a team of chemists at Stanford has shown promise to be thousands of times more sensitive than current techniques in lab experiments, and it is now being put to test in real-world clinical trials....One trial underway in collaboration with the nearby Alameda County Public Health Laboratory will help evaluate the technique as a screening tool for HIV.

    March 18, 2016
    Science Daily

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