10 June 2016 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 23

Media Coverage

-- any Prevention Options -- Antibody Related ResearchSTI VaccinesHIV VaccineCombination PreventionMale and Female CondomsCureGeneralHormonal Contraceptives and HIVHPV VaccinesLubricantMicrobicidesMultipurpose Prevention TechnologiesPrEPTherapeutic VaccinesTreatmentVoluntary Medical Male Circumcision

• Therapeutic vaccine offers hope in AIDS fight

  An AIDS treatment from Italy has shown promising results in a clinical trial in South Africa. The therapeutic vaccine makes antiviral drugs more effective by boosting the immune system of people living with the AIDS virus, HIV.

  June 10, 2016

  HIV Vaccine

  Financial Times

• Kenya secures 340 million USD health funding

  Kenya's health ministry has secured 340 million US dollars from Geneva-based the Global Fund to boost the war against HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis in the 2016/2017 financial year, an official said on Wednesday.

  June 9, 2016

  Standard Media

• AIDS epidemic still driven by human rights violations, United Nations experts warn

  The science is clear: every individual infected with HIV should be offered antiretroviral drugs as soon as the diagnosis is made - this approach is now recommended by the World Health Organization for every country around the world.

  June 8, 2016

  Young Herald

• Ending HIV: ideology vs evidence at the UN

  This week’s negotiations over the UN’s Political Declaration Ending AIDS are rife with circular debates, and sex, gender and sexuality are flashpoints of polarization.

  June 8, 2016

  Open Democracy

• Africa: HIM in New York to end AIDS in Africa and the world

  "Over the next five years we have a fragile window of opportunity to shift gear and put the global HIV response firmly on the Fast-Track to end the AIDS epidemic," said UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé. "This meeting will be critical to harnessing the momentum we have built and securing global commitment to break the epidemic for good."

  June 7, 2016

  The New Republic

• Thailand shows the way towards an HIV-free world

  This week, the World Health Organization is formally declaring that Thailand has officially eliminated new HIV infections among children.

  June 7, 2016

  IPS

• Open relationships are now the most common form of partnership in gay and bi men

  The survey taken by The Melbourne Gay Community Periodic Survey into the sexual behaviour of gay and bisexual men in the Australian state of Victoria found that 32% of the 2886 men questioned were in open relationships.

  June 7, 2016

  Attitude

• There are now an estimated 6,000 PrEP users in San Francisco

  It’s estimated that around 6,000 people in the area are on the HIV prevention drug, with many of the users being gay and bisexual men.

  June 7, 2016

  PrEP

  Gay Times

• NHS watchdog to weigh cost of HIV prevention drug PrEP

  The NHS watchdog NICE has been asked by government to look at the cost of providing an HIV prevention treatment known as PrEP.

  June 7, 2016

  PrEP

  BBC

• China makes impressive strides towards an AIDS-free generation

  Now all hospitals and clinics providing maternal and child health services in the country implement PMTCT and HIV testing for pregnant women….The country’s remarkable scaling-up of successful programs like PMTCT and harm reduction are an example of UNAIDS Fast-Track approach.

  June 7, 2016

  China.org

• MPs accuse minister of “having head in the sand” over HIV prevention drug

  Public health minister Jane Ellison faced a hostile and protracted grilling by MPs from both sides of the House of Commons on Tuesday over the NHS’s refusal last week to fund the drug that prevents HIV, in a regime known as PrEP.

  June 7, 2016

  PrEP

  BuzzFeed

• Global effort to end AIDS would save millions of lives

  The new analysis, based on HIV disease progression and treatment data in South Africa, finds that those goals, though expensive to implement, can be achieved cost-effectively, potentially containing the AIDS epidemic and saving many millions of lives around the globe.

  June 7, 2016

  NIH

• HIV self-testing has several advantages, but some barriers to HIV testing likely to remain

  But other, long-standing barriers to accessing HIV testing are likely to remain pertinent – individuals who do not feel ‘ready’ to know their status, who worry about HIV-related stigma or who fear dying of AIDS will probably still be reluctant to test.

  June 7, 2016

  aidsmap

• To keep winning against AIDS, China needs to talk more about gay sex

  A survey conducted in 2014 showed only 38 percent of sexually active college students, in fact, use condoms. Within that group, gay men are the most affected by HIV.

  June 7, 2016

  Global Post

• Obama: “We can finish the job” and end AIDS by 2030

  President Obama issued a statement Sunday timed to coincide with the marking of 35 years since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its first report on what came to be known as AIDS. He reflected on the battle for understanding, funding and combatting HIV/AIDS, and acknowledged “there is more work to do.”

  June 6, 2016

  LGBTQ Nation

• Circumcision race heats up as DoH deadline looms

  New campaigns are being launched to accelerate the uptake of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in order to meet the National Department of Health’s target of 4.3 million circumcisions by year-end.

  June 6, 2016

  Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision

  SA Breaking News

• An AIDS-free world is possible, but do we have the will to achieve it?

  We have the extraordinary opportunity to usher in the first AIDS-free generation in more than 35 years. The only question is: Do we have the will to do it?

  June 6, 2016

  STAT

• Why Hillary Clinton's HIV promises may not be enough

  While Secretary Clinton laid out her ambitious plan to tackle the epidemic through national leadership, all I could concentrate on was our state-level inability to live out her ambitious goals.

  June 6, 2016

  Advocate

• Scientists find they can eliminate HIV from the DNA of human cells

  Researchers have found they can effectively and safely eliminate HIV from the DNA of human cells grown in a culture.

  June 6, 2016

  Pink News

• Can San Francisco's HIV 'miracle' be replicated?

  While SF is undeniably on target to meet their goal of Getting to Zero, Los Angeles is struggling to keep up…because of their 35 years in this fight, San Francisco now has the infrastructure in place to have a real chance at ending this epidemic in their county. That may be far more difficult to replicate than a pro-PrEP philosophy, patient-focused but rapid medical care, a testing culture, the political will, and the funding to pay for it all.

  June 6, 2016

  HIV Plus Mag

• Botswana: treat all boosts HIV/AIDS fight

  "The investment that we are making in the new HIV Treat All Strategy today is an investment in ensuring a healthy and disease free future for all Botswana," President Khama said.

  June 6, 2016

  Treatment

  Daily News

• These 50 gay men on PrEP donated blood to protest the FDA’s gay blood ban

  New York-based artist Jordan Eagles created a striking sculpture, ‘Blood Mirror’, made from the blood of nine gay men and intended to draw attention to the discriminatory ban. Now, 50 more gay men, all of whom are on PrEP, have donated a tube of their blood to the sculpture in protest of the FDA’s policy.

  June 6, 2016

  TowleRoad

• Lesotho taps taxi drivers to fight HIV with male circumcision

  The driver mobilization scheme, a pilot program that was started in April by Jhpiego...When passengers are interested in VMMC, either for themselves or a family member, Khusu gives them a blue referral slip to take for a clinic consultation.

  June 6, 2016

  Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision

  Newsweek

• Stop stalling and make PrEP for HIV available now

  Further delay to pre-exposure prophylaxis risks the NHS appearing discriminatory of populations at risk.

  June 6, 2016

  PrEP

  BMJ

• This is how the world first learned about AIDS 35 years ago today

  On this day in 1981, it was first reported that five gay men had fallen ill with a rare form of pneumonia. HIV campaigners say, ‘Our fight continues’.

  June 5, 2016

  Gay Star News

• Better animal model to improve HIV vaccine development

  "We found that changing a single amino acid in the envelope coat protein of naturally occurring HIV strains led to dramatic differences in the ability of SHIVs to infect monkeys, while at the same time retaining the native-like features of the virus envelope and its interaction with the human immune system," Shaw said.

  June 4, 2016

  HIV Vaccine

  Science Daily

Published Research

-- any Prevention Options -- Antibody Related ResearchSTI VaccinesHIV VaccineCombination PreventionMale and Female CondomsCureGeneralHormonal Contraceptives and HIVHPV VaccinesLubricantMicrobicidesMultipurpose Prevention TechnologiesPrEPTherapeutic VaccinesTreatmentVoluntary Medical Male Circumcision

• HIV-Tat immunization induces cross-clade neutralizing antibodies and CD4+ T cell increases in antiretroviral-treated South African volunteers: a randomized phase II clinical trial

  The data indicate that Tat vaccination can restore the immune system and induces cross-clade neutralizing anti-Tat antibodies in patients with different genetic backgrounds and infecting viruses, supporting the conduct of phase III studies in South Africa.

  June 9, 2016

  Retrovirology

• ‘PrEP is not ready for our community, and our community is not ready for PrEP’: pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV for people who inject drugs and limits to the HIV prevention response

  People who use drugs have fundamental concerns about the potential impacts of pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV which reflect a ‘fault line’ in HIV prevention: a predominance of biomedical approaches over community perspectives. Greater community engagement in HIV prevention strategy is needed, or we risk continuing to ignore the need for action on the underlying structural drivers and social context of the HIV epidemic.

  June 8, 2016

  Addiction

• PrEP awareness and attitudes in a national survey of primary care clinicians in the United States, 2009-2015

  Awareness of PrEP was low among clinicians (2009: 24%, 2010: 29%) but increased after trials reported effectiveness (2012: 49%, 2013: 51%, 2014: 61%, 2015: 66%).

  June 3, 2016

  PrEP

  PLoS ONE

• Use of an HIV-risk screening tool to identify optimal candidates for PrEP scale-up among men who have sex with men in Toronto, Canada: disconnect between objective and subjective HIV risk.

  A higher HIRI-MSM cut-off may be helpful for identifying candidates for PrEP scale-up. Improving engagement in the PrEP cascade will require interventions to simultaneously address multiple barriers.

  June 3, 2016

  PrEP

  J Int AIDS

• Assessing the gold standard - lessons from the history of RCTs

  Critics have become increasingly adept at ferreting out flaws in RCTs, forcing trialists to be more vigilant in their designs. From a historical perspective, the RCT is not a single or stable technique, but an approach that has evolved as physicians have revised and refined clinical research.

  June 2, 2016

  NEJM

• Trends in hospitalizations of pregnant HIV-infected women in the USA: 2004-2011.

  The numbers of hospitalizations during pregnancy and delivery have not increased for HIV-infected women since 2004, a departure from previously estimated trends. Pregnancy hospitalizations of HIV-infected women remain more medically complex than those of uninfected women.

  June 2, 2016

  Am J Obstet Gynecol

• A phase II randomized controlled trial comparing safety, procedure time, and cost of the PrePex Device to forceps guided surgical circumcision in Zimbabwe

  The trial supports previous studies' conclusions that the PrePex procedure is safe, quick, easy to apply, and effective in terms of procedure time as an alternative to traditional surgical circumcision.

  May 26, 2016

  Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision

  PLoS ONE

• The importance of population denominators for high-impact public health for marginalized populations

  The lack of consistent methods to enumerate population-level denominators for hidden populations has made it difficult for public health to articulate some of the most pressing disparities in America.

  May 18, 2016

  JMIR

• Envelope residue 375 substitutions in simian–human immunodeficiency viruses enhance CD4 binding and replication in rhesus macaques

  Genotypic variation of residue 375 allows for the creation of pathogenic SHIVs that retain the antigenicity, tier 2 neutralization sensitivity, and persistence properties characteristic of primary HIV-1 strains....Our findings suggest a new paradigm for SHIV design and modeling with important applications to HIV-1 vaccine, cure, and pathogenesis research.

  April 29, 2016

  PNAS

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