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15 July VOLUME 17 ISSUE 28

Media Coverage

  • China is bringing free antiviral therapy to all citizens living with HIV/AIDS

    Antiviral treatment should be recommended for all those with HIV/AIDS under China's newly revised guidelines, said an online notice issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission Wednesday. But it has to be on a voluntary basis to make sure they are fully prepared for a treatment that is usually lifelong....Wu Hao, director of Infectious Diseases at You An Hospital in Beijing, one of the largest HIV/AIDS treatment centers nationwide, welcomed the initiative.

    July 19, 2016
    Asia One

  • LGBT groups ‘at war’ over HIV-preventing drugs as attack ad targets controversial AIDS group

    The Los Angeles LGBT Center has released an attack ad aimed at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation – as rival groups clash over HIV-preventing drugs.

    July 13, 2016
    Pink News

  • Latest results show increase in HIV treatment

    Ahead of next week’s International AIDS Conference, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today released results that show a significant increase in the number of people being treated for HIV. The results indicate that the Global Fund partnership had provided lifesaving HIV treatment to 9.2 million people by the end of 2015 – an additional 100,000 people each month since mid-2015.

    July 13, 2016
    Global Fund Flash

  • HIV guidelines push integrase-based regimens; pre-exposure prophylaxis backed as well

    New recommendations of the International Antiviral Society-USA suggest that all patients diagnosed with HIV should be treated with antiretroviral therapy....The recommendations particularly elevate integrase inhibitor-based regimens to what [is] termed the "optimal treatment" for initial HIV therapy, mainly because the use of integrase inhibitors appears to offer a greater barrier to the development of resistance.

    July 13, 2016
    PrEP
    MedPage Today

  • Study finds low risk for HIV transmission when virus is suppressed

    Among couples where one partner has HIV and the other does not, sex without a condom appears relatively safe, as long the virus is suppressed by antiretroviral therapy, researchers reported....But it remains possible that the risk is greater than zero, especially for men who have sex with men, and the researchers are continuing to follow some participants to develop more precise estimates, Rodger and colleagues reported in the July 12 issue of JAMA.

    July 13, 2016
    MedPage Today

  • NIH expands investment in HIV cure research

    The NIH has awarded approximately $30 million in annual funding over the next five years to six research collaborations working to advance basic medical science toward an HIV cure. The awards comprise the second iteration of the Martin Delaney Collaboratory: Towards an HIV-1 Cure program and are a part of President Barack Obama’s pledge to invest in HIV cure research.

    July 13, 2016
    NIH News

  • The Access Issue: IAS President Chris Beyrer’s Q&A, Part II

    “If we can't make headway on the “undone work in HIV,”—better access to treatment—we are not going to be able to control the HIV/AIDS pandemic, warns International AIDS Society President Chris Beyrer....He said that this emphasis on “implementation science” will be a major component of the upcoming International AIDS Conference...."We get more abstracts there than in any other discipline, and it's just an enormous area of interest."

    July 13, 2016
    Global Health Now

  • AIDS conference returns to a changed South Africa

    The South Africa that hosts a global AIDS Conference next week has come a long way from the "AIDS pariah" that did so 16 years ago, when then President Thabo Mbeki stunningly dismissed the link between HIV and the disease....The contrast with the Mbeki era, when...hundreds of delegates walked out of the conference when the president suggested poverty might be the leading cause of AIDS, could hardly be sharper.

    July 13, 2016
    Reuters

  • #AIDS2016: New science may put the power to prevent HIV in women's hands

    Being able to take a pill discreetly, as women have done with contraceptives since the 1950s, is an HIV prevention revolution.

    July 13, 2016
    Bhekisisa

  • El Nino, La Nina could lead to spike in new HIV infections in Africa:

    Drought exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern could lead to a spike in new HIV infections in southern Africa as women and girls turn to sex to survive and patients miss treatments....More than 60 million people, two thirds of them in east and southern Africa, are facing food shortages because of droughts linked to El Nino.... Many patients are refusing to take ART on an empty stomach, others are deciding to spend their limited income on food rather than transport to a health facility, UNICEF said.

    July 12, 2016
    Reuters

  • Singer Annie Lennox urges governments to step up funding for AIDS, malaria and TB

    Ending some of the world's deadliest diseases is within reach but only if donor governments dig deeper into their pockets to fund the fight against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, singer and activist Annie Lennox said on Tuesday. Lennox was among activists calling on Britain to pledge 1.2 billion pounds ($1.58 billion) to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ahead of its summit in September to urge governments to commit more money to fighting the diseases.

    July 12, 2016
    Reuters

  • HIV infecting 2m more people every year, warns UN

    Talk of the end of AIDS was premature, according to a new UN report that reveals the steady decline in new HIV infections stalled five years ago and that, in some areas, numbers are rising again. “We are sounding the alarm,” said Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS executive director. “The power of prevention is not being realised. If there is a resurgence in new HIV infections now, the epidemic will become impossible to control. The world needs to take urgent and immediate action.”

    July 12, 2016
    Guardian

  • Why the South is the epicenter of the AIDS crisis in America

    The epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in America is Atlanta and the southeast, and the hardest hit population is gay and bisexual black men. According to the CDC, half of them will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes if current trends continue. William Brangham reports with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in the second part of the NewsHour’s “The End of AIDS?” series.

    July 12, 2016
    PBS NewsHour

  • Male circumcision, HIV treatment can significantly reduce new infections in African men

    Increasing the number of men who undergo circumcision and increasing rates at which women with HIV are given ART were associated with significant declines in the number of new male HIV infections in rural Ugandan communities....The research, published July 12 in JAMA, is believed the first to show that two promising prevention methods successful in tightly controlled clinical trial settings have real-world effects, [suggesting] that further scale-up of these programs could slow the HIV epidemic.

    July 12, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Interventions do not improve viral suppression among hospitalized patients with HIV infection

    A new study [in the July 12 issue of JAMA, an HIV/AIDS themed issue] assessed the effect of structured patient navigation interventions with or without financial incentives to improve HIV-l viral suppression rates among hospitalized patients with elevated HIV-1 viral loads and substance use....The researchers'...findings do not support these interventions in this setting and indicate that other approaches are needed to improve HIV outcomes in this vulnerable population.

    July 12, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Gilead wins HIV patent manipulation suit but AIDS health group to appeal

    For as long as Gilead Sciences has been making HIV and AIDS meds, it has been the target of AIDS groups over its pricing and availability of drugs. In the latest skirmish,...the US District Court for the Northern District of California last week granted Gilead’s motion to dismiss the case....But the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), which spends millions of dollars a year on Gilead meds for its four dozen health centers, found enough encouragement in the judge’s ruling to decide “this case is ripe for reconsideration by higher courts.”

    July 12, 2016
    Fierce Pharma

  • UNAIDS warns that after significant reductions, declines in new HIV infections among adults have stalled and are rising in some regions

    A new report by UNAIDS reveals concerning trends in new HIV infections among adults. The Prevention Gap report shows the complexity of the AIDS epidemic and how the populations and locations most affected change dramatically across each country and region. It also shows that investments need to be made in effective HIV programmes that are proven to make a significant difference in reducing the number of new HIV infections.

    July 12, 2016
    UNAIDS

  • Fauci: Embrace flexibility as a matter of scientific principle

    This newly released 2015 TEDMED talk by NIAID Director Anthony Fauci—“Embracing flexibility as a matter of scientific principle”—shares his deeply personal account of how he had to bend certain overly rigid rules of science to fit with the emergent needs of HIV/AIDS patients and activists.

    July 12, 2016
    TEDMED

  • #AIDS2016 signals the beginning of research into a new generation of HIV vaccines

    HIV vaccines are a now pivotal part of the prevention research agenda: there is scientific optimism about the ability to develop an effective vaccine and South Africa is now a central point in this research.

    July 12, 2016
    HIV Vaccine
    Bhekisisa

  • AIDS epidemic 'over' in Australia, say peak bodies

    Australia's peak AIDS organisations and scientists have announced an end to the AIDS epidemic, as the country joins the few nations in the world to have beaten the syndrome. The number of annual cases of AIDS diagnoses is now so small, top researchers and the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations have declared the public health issue to be over....Professor Sharon Lewin, director of the Peter Doherty Institute, told the ABC that anti-retroviral medications had been crucial.

    July 11, 2016
    Sydney Morning Herald

  • HIV is spreading in Chile -- and lots of people don't know they have it

    The wealthiest nation per capita in Latin America is facing a rising tide of HIV cases, but...many don't know they have it....Over the past decade, new cases have doubled. Today about 25,000 people are being treated for the virus in Chile, and officials estimate that another 14,000 may be living with HIV without knowing it....Carlos Beltrán,...head of SIDA-Chile, says that stigma, along with outdated policies, is leading to the spike in new cases.

    July 11, 2016
    VICE News

  • US pledges $410 million to fight AIDS in South Africa

    [South Africa's] Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said while the government expected to take on a larger share of the financial burden of HIV treatment and prevention, it depended on support from the international community....Pretoria set up a new state-owned pharmaceutical firm last year to help cut the cost of HIV treatment. In December 2014, South Africa chose four drug companies, including India’s Cipla and local firm Aspen Pharmacare, to make and supply anti-retrovirals to public hospitals.

    July 11, 2016
    Reuters

  • Two cutting-edge technologies for HIV detection in infants receive WHO prequalification

    Two innovative technologies for early infant diagnosis of HIV newly prequalified by WHO will allow many more infants to be diagnosed quickly and placed on life-saving treatment,...instead of sending a sample to a laboratory, which can take weeks or months to return a result. The prequalification is the result of an 18-month effort, including a collaboration between WHO, South Africa’s National Health Laboratory Service and the US CDC.

    July 11, 2016
    WHO

  • ART use averting huge numbers of opportunistic infections among children living with HIV in lower-income countries

    There has been a decrease in cases of many opportunistic infections (OIs) among children living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries thanks to antiretroviral therapy, a meta-analysis published in the June 15th edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases shows. Investigators estimated that use of ART is averting over 161,000 opportunistic infections each year, saving $17 million per annum.

    July 11, 2016
    aidsmap news

  • Australia has conquered AIDS, but not HIV

    Australia’s AIDS epidemic is over, and the country could virtually eliminate HIV infections by 2020, according to an announcement released today by a team of researchers and community experts ahead of the 21st International AIDS Conference, set to begin Sunday in South Africa. “The AIDS public health threat has morphed into an HIV prevention challenge,” says medical epidemiologist Andrew Grulich, head of the HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Program at the Kirby Institute.

    July 11, 2016
    Science

  • #AIDS2016: As donor funding falls, SA must come up with a plan to stretch HIV bucks

    It will cost the country R30-billion a year to treat and prevent HIV by 2020, so the state has to lower costs and be clever with its health spending.

    July 11, 2016
    Bhekisisa

  • Nkosi Johnson, you were the Hector Pieterson of the AIDS generation

    Fifteen years after his death at the age of 12 and a week before the start of the International AIDS Conference, Anso Thom pays tribute to AIDS activist Nkosi Johnson.

    July 10, 2016
    Daily Maverick

  • HIV epidemic continues among gay men -- and antiretroviral medicine could be to blame

    Despite two generations of prevention, awareness and treatment, gay and bisexuals continue to have high levels of HIV infection, a new study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows. Today, treatment is so good people are back to being reckless about their lifestyles, so scholars writing in The Lancet have issued a call to expand access to...PrEP, which has been highly effective in dramatically reducing transmission among this population.

    July 9, 2016
    Science 2.0

  • Despite advances, HIV epidemic continues among gay men across the globe

    A new study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests....[that] failure to get PrEP to people who need it most--those who are HIV negative and at high risk of infection--and backsliding in civil liberties for the gay community in nations such as Russia, Nigeria and Uganda have contributed to continued high HIV rates among gay men....The US CDC [has] estimated that in the United States a 20-year-old gay black man has a 50 percent chance of becoming infected with HIV in his lifetime.

    July 7, 2016
    Science Daily

  • HIV study confirms clinically viable vaccine paving the way for future treatments

    A new scientific study reveals results that lead the way to the development of an effective human vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus. In the study published in Nature Medicine, researchers worked with a species of Old World monkeys, rhesus macaques, to reproduce the trial results of RV144, the only HIV vaccine that has been tested and shown to reduce the rate of HIV acquisition in a phase III clinical trial.

    July 7, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Will the world find an end to AIDS?

    PBS NewsHour traveled to six places across the world [San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa] to find stories of those in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. Will they find an end to AIDS? Watch our six-part series, starting July 11th.

    July 1, 2016
    PBS

  • China making HIV self-test kits more accessible to plug gap in testing of at-risk groups

    Amid rising incidence of the disease among China’s young and talk of a generation haunted by HIV, use of kits bought from e-commerce sites is on the rise....But despite 130 million tests conducted in 2014, 70 million more than the previous year, experts are calling for more action....“Current screening practices appear to have lost momentum in detecting patients,” Wu Zun-you, head of NCAids, told China Daily in April.

    June 27, 2016
    South China Morning Post

  • Haiti launches new AIDS testing, information campaign

    Haiti's Ministry of Health and the UN launched a new anti-HIV/AIDS campaign Friday, providing information and rapid testing to help thwart the spread of the epidemic....The initiative coincides with an annual day of HIV testing across the Caribbean. Some 150,000 Haitians are HIV-positive,...55 percent of all HIV cases across the Caribbean....HIV has a 2.2 percent prevalence across Haiti,...8.4 percent among sex workers and 18.5 percent among gay men.

    June 25, 2016
    AFP

Published Research

  • Impact of the Centers for Disease Control's HIV preexposure prophylaxis guidelines for men who have sex with men in the United States

    Implementation of CDC PrEP guidelines would result in strong and sustained reductions in HIV incidence among MSM in the United States.

    July 14, 2016
    PrEP
    J Infect Dis

  • Making an impact with preexposure prophylaxis for prevention of HIV infection

    In this issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Jenness et al present a mathematical model that assesses the CDC's recommended criteria for PrEP use in US men who have sex with men (MSM): essentially, recent receptive or insertive anal sex, without a condom, with a partner of unknown HIV status (within or outside of a monogamous relationship) or anal sex, regardless of condom use, in an ongoing relationship with a known HIV-positive partner.

    July 14, 2016
    J Infect Dis

  • Condomless sex with virologically suppressed HIV-infected individuals: How safe it is?

    For individuals who want to routinely or intermittently not use condoms with an HIV-infected partner, clinicians can indicate that the risk of HIV transmission appears small in the setting of continued viral suppression, emphasizing that the duration the HIV-infected partner needs to be virologically suppressed before achieving optimal protection is unknown, although appears to be for at least 6 months, based on the best available data.

    July 14, 2016
    Male and Female Condoms
    JAMA

  • HIV among adolescents and young adults surveillance report, 2010-2014

    Young people aged 13 to 24 accounted for an estimated 22% of all HIV diagnoses and had the second highest rate of diagnoses in 2014....Black/African American adolescents and young adults continue to be disproportionately affected....compared to 23% of Hispanics/Latinos, and 17% of whites. Young gay and bisexual men remain particularly affecte, accounting for 66% of all HIV diagnoses.

    July 14, 2016
    CDC

  • Infographic: HIV Awareness and Testing, 2013 AND 2014

    This Visualizing Health Policy infographic provides a snapshot of HIV-related awareness and experiences among adults in the United States and 2 demographic groups that make up a disproportionate share of people with HIV: black adults and gay and bisexual men.

    July 12, 2016
    JAMA

  • Antiretroviral drugs for treatment and prevention of HIV infection in adults: 2016 recommendations of the International Antiviral Society/USA Panel

    All HIV-infected individuals with detectable plasma virus should receive treatment with recommended initial [ARV] regimens consisting of an InSTI plus 2 NRTIs. Preexposure prophylaxis should be considered as part of an HIV prevention strategy for at-risk individuals. When used effectively, currently available ARVs can sustain HIV suppression and can prevent new HIV infection. With these treatment regimens, survival rates among HIV-infected adults who are retained in care can approach those of uninfected adults.

    July 12, 2016
    JAMA

  • Visions for an AIDS-free generation: Red Ribbons of Hope

    This issue of JAMA, devoted to the topic of HIV/AIDS, includes articles that collectively provide a present-day portrait of HIV/AIDS, celebrating progress and also highlighting continued challenges. The publication of this issue also coincides with the 21st International AIDS Conference, scheduled for later this month. This issue includes 3 original research reports and a Special Communication that address various aspects of HIV treatment and prevention.

    July 12, 2016
    JAMA

  • Editorial: Antiretrovirals for HIV treatment and prevention: the challenges of success

    In the current issue of JAMA, the IAS-USA presents its most recent set of guidelines, reflecting substantial changes over the past 20 years in the development of more potent combinations of drugs with fewer adverse effects, the advent of coformulated medications, and the evidence that antiretroviral agents have a vital role in HIV prevention....The new IAS-USA guidelines are particularly noteworthy in several regards.

    July 12, 2016
    JAMA

  • Sexual activity without condoms and risk of HIV transmission in serodifferent couples when the HIV-positive partner is using suppressive antiretroviral therapy

    Among serodifferent heterosexual and MSM couples in which the HIV-positive partner was using suppressive ART and who reported condomless sex, during median follow-up of 1.3 years per couple, there were no documented cases of within-couple HIV transmission....Additional longer-term follow-up is necessary to provide more precise estimates of risk.

    July 12, 2016
    JAMA

  • An HIV vaccine mapping uncharted territory

    If efforts in developing an HIV vaccine based on the induction of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are successful, this achievement will represent the most elegant and complex scientific approach toward any vaccine in history. In contrast, if unsuccessful, this experience will be recorded as the most highly sophisticated and scientifically elegant proof that the development of such a vaccine is impossible. Hopefully, the former and not the latter will be true.

    July 12, 2016
    JAMA

  • Impact and cost-effectiveness of Point-Of-Care CD4 testing on the HIV epidemic in South Africa

    Our findings suggest that even if ART is expanded to all HIV positive individuals and HIV testing efforts are increased in the near future, point-of-care (POC) CD4 testing is a cost-effective tool, even within a short time horizon. Our study also illustrates the importance of evaluating the potential impact of such diagnostic technologies at the population level, so that indirect benefits and costs can be incorporated into estimations of cost-effectiveness.

    July 8, 2016
    PLOS ONE

  • How much do we know about drug resistance due to PrEP use? Analysis of experts' opinion and its influence on the projected public health impact

    Conclusions: There is no broad consensus on quantification of key biological processes that underpin the emergence of PrEP-associated drug resistance. Despite this, the contribution of PrEP use to the prevalence of the detectable drug resistance is expected to be small. However, individuals who become infected despite the use of PrEP should be closely monitored.

    July 8, 2016
    PLOS ONE

  • The effect of antiretroviral treatment on health care utilization in rural South Africa: A population-based cohort study

    Our results indicate that ART scale-up in this high HIV prevalence community has shifted health care utilization from hospitals and private-sector primary care to public-sector primary care,...for both HIV-infected and -uninfected populations, supporting and extending hypotheses of ‘therapeutic citizenship’ whereby HIV-infected patients receiving ART facilitate primary care access for family and community members....Future research needs to confirm this interpretation.

    July 6, 2016
    PLOS ONE

  • Access of protective antiviral antibody to neuronal tissues requires CD4 T-cell help

    Here we examine the mechanism by which antibodies gain access to neuronal tissues to control infection. Using a mouse model of genital herpes infection, we demonstrate that both antibodies and CD4 T cells are required to protect the host....Our results reveal a previously unappreciated role of CD4 T cells in mobilizing antibodies to the peripheral sites of infection where they help to limit viral spread.

    May 18, 2016
    Nature

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