13 JUNE 2014, VOLUME 15, ISSUE 24

The National AIDS Control Council will incorporate the county governments in the new National HIV Strategic Framework to fight the spread of HIV-AIDS....NACC Coast regional coordinator Julius Koome said county governments must work with the national government in ensuring funds are set aside for HIV-AIDS prevention projects. "We are talking with the counties to ensure a certain percentage of budgetary allocation is channeled towards the HIV-AIDS kitty," he said. Koome said they cannot continue waiting for donor support to fight HIV....

...[S]ix months ago, [the Indonesia AIDS Coalition/IAC launched AIDS Digital, a mobile phone application that allows users to access information about HIV/AIDS information and medical services confidentially. The first service of its kind in Indonesia, the app provides information about HIV testing and treatment services available across the country....The AIDS Digital mobile app and accompanying website provide a directory of about 1,300 HIV health provider sites across Indonesia....

Kenya's Ministry of Health released statistics yesterday stating that approximately 13,000 babies are born with HIV annually, averaging 35 infants each day. Health Secretary James Macharia spoke June 9 at the Red Cross Headquarters in Nairobi’s South C where he received equipment procured by the Health Ministry in collaboration with the Red Cross with support from the Global Fund. Macharia said, “This trend is unacceptable and must be reversed”....

Many observers believe that the United States is churning out too many new Ph.D. biomedical researchers, creating a hypercompetitive, unhealthy environment. But a new report from an advisory panel to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) paints a different picture for physician-scientists: There may not be enough of them to replace those preparing to retire....

Uganda's AIDS commission on Friday called an HIV bill passed by parliament "nonsensical", and urged the country's president not to sign it into law. "My advice to the president is not to sign the bill," Vinand Nantulya, who chairs the Uganda AIDS Commission -- a government-run body, told reporters...."If this is the law, then a right thinking a person would not get tested...," said Nantulya....

...The scandal is that one of the main reasons why people with HIV do not come forward for testing is that they know they will come up against a wall of discrimination and prejudice....In my view, HIV will not be defeated until there is a vaccine. ... A vaccine will not end the prejudice with HIV but it will give us the means to go around it...

Pathogens entering our body only remain unnoticed for a short period. Within minutes our immune cells detect the invader and trigger an immune response. However, some viruses have developed strategies to avoid detection and elimination by our immune system. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig have now been able to show how the herpesviruses achieve this....
 

...Possible interpretations of [our] findings are that providers are less confident in Black and Hispanic patients to be adherent; that they place too much confidence in their White, non-Hispanic patients; or that patients differentially want such discussion. The lack of specific problem solving and high provider directiveness suggests areas for improvement.
 

Difficulty obtaining reliable transportation to clinic is frequently cited as a barrier to HIV care in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Numerous studies have sought to characterize the impact of geographic and transportation-related barriers on HIV outcomes in SSA, but to date there has been no systematic attempt to summarize these findings. In this systematic review, we summarized this body of literature....We conclude that geographic and transportation-related barriers are associated with poor outcomes across the continuum of HIV care.
 

...Here we focus on the local level as we consider how geospatial analysis can enrich our knowledge of the epidemiology and public health impact of sexual health, and consider the ethical, governance and technical challenges associated with this rapidly emerging field....

Much social science research in Africa is conducted in the form of small, individual consultancy projects. A survey of Ugandan social scientists found most believed this system limits individual and institutional research capacity. Interviews with Ugandan research commissioners found little sense of responsibility to strengthen research capacity. National guidelines for institutional consultancies incorporating institutional overheads could strengthen research capacity.
 

A new estimate puts the likelihood of HIV transmission via receptive anal sex at 138 per 10,000 acts, but looking at probabilities over a longer period provides a better understanding of risk than per-act probabilities, according to a pair of studies in the May 6 advance online edition of AIDS. Mathematical models showed that combining prevention methods -- especially those that include antiretroviral treatment-as-prevention or PrEP -- can greatly reduce the risk of transmission....