14 August 2015 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 33

In an effort to improve HIV outcomes, the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and the National HIV/AIDS Initiative at the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law have published a report detailing more effective HIV strategies at the state level. Lead author Jeffrey S. Crowley, program director for Georgetown’s National HIV/AIDS Initiative, exclusively told Pharmacy Times how pharmacists in particular can provide support to HIV-infected patients.

Interventions which can reduce the very high incidence of HIV in young women in southern Africa are urgently needed, and cash transfers are one means by which the protective effect of education might be promoted.

The Lordina Foundation, on Monday organized a health screening exercise for women groups in selected communities in Accra in line with the ‘Prevention of Mother-to Child-Transmission of HIV and Keeping Mothers Alive Campaign’, part of a broader operational plan of the Ghana chapter of the Organization of African First Ladies Association. The partnership intends holding health outreaches in five selected sites in the Greater Accra Region in 2015, and had already held similar ones in Weija, Kasoa and Ningo Ada.

Our Time To Be Heard is a collection of stories [commissioned by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance] highlighting the current challenges that young people are facing in the context of the HIV epidemic. Cédric Nininahazwe, executive director of the Burundian National Network of Young People Living with HIV, says: “While the debate on the post 2015 development agenda is still alive and kicking, it is vital that we champion the needs of adolescents, in particular those living with or most at risk of HIV."

HIV testing, particularly for those between the ages of 13 to 64 in New York State, is on its way to being as routine and regular as checking for high blood pressure. Comprehensive testing is a key component of Governor Andrew Cuomo's ambitious initiative to end AIDS in the state by 2020....Implementation of the plan begins this month with 13 regional information meetings taking place around the state.

Botswana’s Safe Male Circumcision Campaign has missed its annual target of 50,000 males, Health Minister Dorcus Makgatho is quoted as saying Tuesday by Yarona FM radio station. Speaking at the re-launch of the campaign in Maun in northern Botswana, Makgatho revealed that despite the campaign running for some time, it had not been able to achieve its intended annual target. Makgatho said the campaign...was being “re-energized” to attract more participants.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of Education have jointly issued a circular calling for strengthening AIDS prevention and control work at school. Colleges and secondary schools are required to report epidemics of HIV/AIDS, at least every six months to the local education administrative departments for further analysis on the cause and factors that influence the outbreak, according to the notice.

A new regional task team is to be established to drive the response to HIV prevention in East and Southern Africa....The decision to establish the team was taken at a Regional Think Tank meeting on HIV prevention on revitalising/reinvigorating HIV prevention in Johannesburg, South Africa on 4 August. The team is to take on the responsibility of advocacy, providing guidance and technical assistance, and implementation of prevention programmes or pilots.

Recent data suggested that retreatment HIV drug resistance in sub-Saharan Africa was associated with a nearly fourfold increase in switching to second-line ART, but did not influence mortality or AIDS-related events. “The expanding exposure to antiretroviral drugs at a population level will lead to increased transmission of drug-resistant viruses,” the researchers wrote. “As a consequence, ART programs will be confronted with increasing numbers of patients that already carry drug strains before starting standard first-line ART.”

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that more than one in four female sex workers in two Mexican cities on the US border entered the sex trade younger than age 18....These women were more than three times more likely to become infected with HIV than those who started sex work as adults. They were also...seven times less likely to use a condom during their first month in the sex trade. The study is published August 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The former Soviet-ruled state hopes the policy change will help improve its relations with Europe. The European Union demanded the repeal of the ban, which has lasted 14 years, during its ongoing visa-free travel talks with Ukraine. Kiev currently aspires to strike a deal for an unrestricted travel agreement with Brussels next year, and hopes to apply for EU membership by 2020.

In 2013, the CDC reported that the rate of new HIV infections (incidence) among women in the US had dropped by 21 percent between 2008 and 2010. This news led some people to assume that the impact of HIV on American women was diminishing. But, on closer examination, the data show that what we know is incomplete. The key question is how many women have HIV but don't know it.

High diversity among certain cells that help fight viruses and tumors is strongly associated with the likelihood of subsequent infection by HIV, researchers have found. Natural killer cells, or NK cells, are lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell....The findings, described in a study published in Science Translational Medicine, could spur the development of blood tests capable of flagging individuals' susceptibility to viral infection.

In 70 local health clinics run by the Indian state of Haryana, the parents of a child who starts the standard series of vaccinations can walk away with a free kilogram of sugar. And if the parents make sure that the child finishes the injections, they also get to take home a free litre of cooking oil. These simple gifts are part of massive [randomized] trial testing whether rewards can boost the stubbornly low immunization rates for poor children in the region.

Even though the elimination of congenital syphilis has been on the maternal and child health agenda for over a decade, elimination has not yet been achieved; what, then, are the factors currently facilitating the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of syphilis?...The papers in this Supplement describe examples of the progress and achievements toward elimination, as well as a description of the remaining challenges.

At current coverage, Options B and B+ reduced [adult] heterosexual HIV incidence by about 5 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in both [Uganda and South Africa]. With current ART and high PMTCT coverage, Option B+ reduced HIV incidence by 35 percent in Uganda and 19 percent in South Africa, while Option B had smaller, but meaningful, reductions. The greatest reductions in HIV incidence were achieved with high ART and PMTCT coverage. In this scenario, all PMTCT strategies yielded similar results.

It is widely believed that if an HIV vaccine elicits moderate in vitro titers of serum neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) against a challenge virus, it will prevent infection....Our data suggest that the relationship between serum in vitro nAb titers and protection from mucosal SIV challenge is more complex than previously recognized in the setting of active immunization, warranting further studies to understand the balance between immune activation, target cell availability, and protective antibody responses.

The Lancet Series on HIV and sex workers showed that decriminalisation of sex work would have the greatest effect on the course of HIV epidemics across all settings, averting 33–46 percent of HIV infections in the next decade. Such a move would also reduce mistreatment of sex workers and increase their access to human rights, including health care. The Lancet supports Amnesty's draft policy and urges its Board to adopt it at their upcoming meeting in Dublin.

The Garífuna, an ethnic minority group in Honduras, have been disproportionately affected by HIV....Using data from a 2012 population-based survey,..[we found that] among both men and women, temporary migration in the last year was associated with an increased likelihood of multiple sexual partnerships and with concurrency, though only the association between migration and multiple sexual partnerships among men was statistically significant.

In 2012 an estimated 2.1 million adolescents were living with HIV....In an effort to interest children and adolescents in learning more about HIV, we have created a description of the HIV replication cycle in LEGO mosaic....The hope is to draw in children and adolescents, and maybe adults, with interesting visuals and jumpy music, with a goal of motivating further investigation of the subject.

Sex workers remain a vulnerable population at risk for HIV acquisition and transmission.... International efforts are taking a public health approach calling for decriminalization of sex work as the most effective public health strategy for reducing HIV incidence among sex workers. Although such an approach is not yet politically feasible in the US, some urgent practical policy changes can be implemented to improve... generation of evidence to support HIV programs targeting sex workers.