15 January 2016 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 2

Traditional practices in Malawi that had disappeared...are gradually resurfacing, much to the alarm of those working on the national HIV response. ‘Fish for sex’ is transactional sex in which girls and women offer sex services to fishermen in exchange for fish. Another traditional practice, ‘kupimbira’ , allows a poor family to receive a loan or livestock in exchange for daughters of any age....The harmful cultural practices largely affect young people.

Giving daily HIV drugs to healthy gay men has huge potential to help reverse the epidemic, say scientists. The medication prevents new infections by killing the virus before it has a chance to take hold in the body. Calculations, published in The Lancet, indicate giving the drugs to the most at-risk men could cut new infections by more than 40% in the UK. Experts said the approach was of “huge benefit” to at-risk men and should be adopted.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is seeking to absorb its pharmacy on 18th Street into its clinic on Castro Street. However, surrounding neighbors and members of the business district are opposing the move....Dale Gluth, the foundation’s Bay Area regional director...[said] the opposition actually stems from a disagreement on policy issues related to the HIV/AIDS community, rather than the foundation’s physical impact on the neighborhood.

Men and women’s bodies are different. Why, then, would we expect them to respond to infectious diseases the same way?...This assumption has long existed, but data are now showing otherwise. Sabra Klein,...Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is making it her mission to demonstrate in Sex and Gender Differences in Infection and Treatments for Infectious Diseases (Springer, 2015) that not only do sex differences exist, but need to be reflected in drug trials and treatments.

This year, we can celebrate the successful impact that Zambia has made so far in responding to the HIV epidemic collectively. Yet these successes are merely not enough to achieve the global vision of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 for Zambia....According to the National AIDS Council (NAC), 2015–2020 is a fragile window of opportunity in which a significant difference can be made.

Joining a wave of companies racing in the HIV vaccines space, Aelix Therapeutics announced a $12.7 million Series A round this week--and funding from Johnson & Johnson Innovation--to support work on its therapeutic HIV vaccine candidate. Barcelona, Spain-based Aelix will use the money to further the development of its HTI immunogen candidate up to completion of a Phase II proof-of-concept study, [with] clinical trials expected Q3 2016.

Moderna Therapeutics received an initial $20 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a new affordable combination of messenger RNA–based antibody therapeutics geared toward preventing HIV infection. The grant is intended for the combination's preclinical study and Phase I clinical trial. Gates Foundation’s $20 million funding could potentially grow into a total $100 million commitment....toward development of additional mRNA-based treatments for various infectious diseases.

Parental permission for adolescent participation in research on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and other sexually transmitted infections is not required ethically and may undermine public health interests, according to a new paper by law and public health experts at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and Baylor College of Medicine.

A medical breakthrough in Spain could provide hope for actor Charlie Sheen who admitted recently that he has HIV. Until the discovery that blood transplants from umbilical cords could cure the virus, the closest medication available was a pill, Truvada, which prevents people from acquiring the virus. However, the blood transplants from umbilical cords must come from one with genetic resistance to HIV. That is what doctors in Barcelona did to a 37-year-old man from the same Spanish city who was cured of HIV.

A new study finds a significant racial disparity within a doubly troubled population of patients: those with HIV and Hodgkin lymphoma. In such cases, blacks are at significantly higher risk than whites of not receiving treatment for the cancer that in many cases would be effective....While the disparity is clear, said lead author Adam Olszewski, [Brown University and Memorial Hospital Cancer Center], the root cause is not. Several closely entangled epidemiological, socioeconomic, and medical factors are at play.

Even in the absence of an effective HIV vaccine,...we have the tools to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States and globally....It is often said that we were slow to recognize the seriousness of the emerging HIV pandemic during the early 1980s. At the time, our ability to fight its spread was meager. Today, we have the tools to end this modern-day plague. We must not squander the opportunity. History will judge us harshly if we do.

This study provides preliminary but important evidence for the influence of prophylactically applied microbicides on disease progression of subsequent SIV infection and suggests that the long-term immune safety concern for microbicides should be also considered in the effort to develop effective microbicides.

Despite the relative success of ART for individuals infected with HIV, the rate of new diagnoses has remained fairly constant. Ratmann et al. examined probable sources of transmission in the Netherlands for MSM...They found that neither ineffective ART nor inadequate retention in care contributed to new infections. Rather, many of these cases could have been averted with available ART had there been more comprehensive testing coverage among men at risk of transmission.

Event-driven dosing for TFV-based PrEP has promise for HIV prevention in MSM. Future research of event-driven PrEP in women and heterosexual men should be guided by a better understanding of the importance of mucosal drug concentrations for PrEP efficacy and its sensitivity to adherence.

Many carbohydrate-conjugated vaccines have been designed to induce bnAb-like antibodies, but none have yet been successful....In view of this situation, some immunization regimens based on the affinity maturation of antibodies have been tested. Herein we summarize recent studies into the design of carbohydrate-based HIV vaccines and some valuable experiences gained in work with other bnAb-based HIV vaccines.

UK guidance advises HIV-positive women to abstain from breast feeding. Although this eliminates risk of postnatal vertical transmission of HIV,...the decision to avoid breast feeding came at considerable emotional cost to participants. Professionals should be aware of the difficulties encountered by HIV-positive women in refraining from breast feeding.... Appropriate financial and emotional support increases capacity to adhere to infant-feeding decisions and may reduce emotional impact.

Family planning providers recruited via website postings, national meetings, and email completed an anonymous survey in 2015. Even among providers in the Northeast and West, the proportion of respondents answering questions correctly was less than 50%. Thirty-six percent of respondents had seen any PrEP guidelines. Providers identified lack of training as the main barrier to PrEP implementation; 87% wanted PrEP education.

We sought to identify characteristics that intravaginal ring users consider when making decisions about use or non-use [of intravaginal rings for delivery of agents to protect against sexual transmission of HIV and STIs as well as pregnancy]....Five salient ring characteristics were identified....Pliability (or flexibility) was generally considered the most important mechanical property. Several ring properties were associated with perceptions of efficacy.

It is widely known that older women are at lesser risk for sexual violence than younger women, but current inattention to older women in the gender-based violence (GBV) field has minimized the experiences of older women survivors at great detriment to their health and rights.

PrEP awareness was almost non-existent and the HIV-negative women urged publicity. They expressed much enthusiasm about PrEP and wanted to use and recommend it to others despite recognizing potential complexities related to taking PrEP, such as side effects, access, duration and frequency of use.