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16 JANUARY 2015 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 3

Media Coverage

  • The deadliest diseases sometimes get the least research money

    The diseases that affect the most Americans don't always attract more research money from the government. In this chart, from the Dot Data blog, you can see that some conditions that affect many Americans attract a relatively small amount of research funding from the National Institutes of Health, one of the biggest science funders in the US....Meanwhile, some diseases that attract a lot of money — HIV/AIDS, MS — affect a proportionally smaller number of people. These also happen to be diseases that have been highly politicized over the years.
    January 15, 2015
    Vox

  • Special report: Depo-Provera’s HIV risk ‘mystery’

    The quest for truth among scientists about the controversial injectable, Depo-Provera, seems to be persistent three years after the WHO allayed public fears about the possible link of the popular contraceptive with risk of HIV transmission. Depo-Provera, a contraceptive widely used by women in Sub-Saharan Africa, was again last week associated with increasing the risk of HIV spread among users, according to a study published in the Lancet. In what appears like scratching old wounds, the latest findings might trigger another global debate on the injectable....
    January 15, 2015
    The Citizen

  • State’s steps to control HIV seen as model for nation

    Massachusetts residents with HIV are twice as likely as patients nationally to have the disease under control, according to the state Department of Public Health....Almost two-thirds of people with HIV have the illness fully in check, with the virus at extremely low levels in their blood. The measures taken by the state to control the virus — near-universal health coverage and a robust network of social services — could serve as a national model.
     
    January 15, 2015
    Boston Globe

  • Why an HIV vaccine could be our best hope

    Of all the medical advances expected for 2015, the most encouraging for Swazis hoping to avoid HIV would be breakthroughs toward achieving an HIV vaccine....True, a vaccine prevents and does not cure, so the lives of people who are living with HIV and AIDS will not be changed if a vaccine to block HIV becomes a reality. They are already infected. However, their loved ones and future generations of Swazis will have a protection that was simply considered medically impossible a few years ago.
    January 15, 2015
    Swazi Observer

  • Medical research starving for funds

    US investment in medical research has slowed down greatly over the past decade, and the research getting funded doesn't match up to the health challenges facing the country....Overall medical investment in the United States grew at just .8 percent per year between 2004-2012, a major slowdown from the 6 percent annual growth between 1994 and 2004....Some diseases, like cancer and HIV/AIDS, get funded at better rates than predicted based on the disease burden, while others like stroke and depression fall short,
    January 14, 2015
    Washington Post

  • New vaccine comes in a capsule

    Wanted: Volunteers to test an experimental new AIDS vaccine that is needle-free....The new vaccine comes in a capsule and it's made using a common cold virus called an adenovirus, genetically engineered with a tiny piece of the AIDS virus. It's only a very early stage experiment, meant to show the vaccine is safe. However, if it is, it could be a start not only towards a much-needed vaccine against the AIDS virus, but needle-free vaccines against many different infections.
    January 14, 2015
    NBC

  • NIH chief loses sleep that US researchers may leave for China

    It used to be the NIH would fund roughly one in three scientific pitches it received. It now funds one in six, according to [NIH chief Francis] Collins. “That means we’re leaving half the science on the table that we once would have funded,” he says. This also means talented US-based researchers could decamp to countries like China that are dramatically boosting state funding for science. “That is the thing that wakes me up at night,’ he frets.
     
    January 14, 2015
    Wall Street Journal

  • Fighting HIV: time to focus, says Debbi Birx

    In a recent blog post, PEPFAR director Ambassador Debbi Birx outlines an aggressive agenda (called PEPFAR 3.0)...that emphasizes her commitment to focusing its resources better. Overall, it’s a smart approach that capitalizes on the fact that the HIV epidemic is actually heavily concentrated in a few countries and populations: just 7 countries account for more than half of the world’s HIV cases.  This mirrors the domestic epidemic here in the US, where over half of all HIV cases are in just 5 states.
    January 14, 2015
    Smart Global Health

  • Monkeys raise hope for AIDS prevention

    A long-lasting injectable drug being developed by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline protects female monkeys from HIV/AIDS, according to two studies published Wednesday in Science. While much more work has yet to be done to determine whether Glaxo’s GSK744 LA is safe and effective in humans, the research strengthens hope that people may one day be able to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS with an injection every three months, just as some women do today with injectable contraceptives.
    January 14, 2015
    BD Live

  • PrEP: Risk of resistance to antiretroviral drugs used to prevent infection is lower than thought, study finds

    The landmark study [of] preventive use of antiretroviral medicine...has yielded data showing that the intervention poses lower risks of later resistance to the drugs than previously thought. The findings, described in the January 13 Journal of Infectious Diseases, were the result of testing samples from the  Partners PrEP clinical trial for mutations associated with resistance to the two antiretroviral drugs the trial tested. 
    January 14, 2015
    Science Speaks

  • Researchers delve into HIV-infected population’s aging risks

    Faced with an aging HIV-infected population, international researchers are trying to understand whether the virus or the medications that treat it may accelerate aging....Though it is too early to say for sure, some antiretrovirals have been associated with kidney and other toxicities, and HIV itself could accelerate the aging process,...said Peter Reiss, a professor of medicine at the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, at an annual HIV meeting [in Bangkok].
    January 14, 2015
    Wall Street Journal

  • Institute of Medicine urges broader sharing of clinical trial data

    In response to ongoing debate over access to clinical trial data, the Institute of Medicine has released a widely anticipated report that recommends government agencies and companies share data from research studies that they fund. Specifically, the IOM suggests that summary level results...should be publicly available no later than one year after a trial has been completed. And a complete data package...should be shared no later than 18 months after a study is completed.
    January 14, 2015
    Wall Street Journal

  • HIV kids are high risk for pneumonia

    A new study said HIV-positive children are much more likely to die from pneumonia than children who are not infected with the AIDS virus. It’s estimated there are more than three million children under age 14 living with HIV. The vast majority are in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers said deaths from pneumonia among HIV-positive children could be dramatically reduced by expanding current treatments.
     
    January 13, 2015
    Voice of America

  • Protesters give Malawi government 100-day ultimatum

    Malawi-based civil society groups on Tuesday presented government officials with a petition seeking redress of bad leadership and financial problems that have caused government employees to strike. Issued along with a 100-day deadline to respond to their concerns the petition outlines a range [of] topics, from unfair election laws to misallocation of charitable funding by the National Aids Commission (NAC).
    January 13, 2015
    Voice of America

  • NYC Health Dept. launches PrEP, PEP outreach campaign

    To boost awareness of pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP) as ways to prevent HIV infection, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH) has launched an outreach program targeted to 600 doctors....Titled “PrEP & PEP: New Ways to Prevent HIV,” the campaign includes informational visits to targeted health care providers. Demetre Daskalakis, MD, an assistant commissioner at the DOH, said the campaign also hopes to change the tone of the conversations happening around PrEP and PEP.
    January 13, 2015
    POZ

  • Study estimates 153,000 sex workers active in South Africa

    Commissioned by the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), the research gathered data in 12 sites nationwide....[and] is aimed at helping SANAC roll out the country’s first national HIV care and treatment plan for sex workers, [of whom] about 8,000 are men and about another 6,000 are transgender. At the 2014 Southern Africa HIV Clinicians Conference, SANAC CEO Fareed Abdullah quoted unpublished research indicating that HIV prevalence rates among some South African sex workers could be more than 70 percent.
    January 13, 2015
    Health-e

  • University Hospitals signs agreement with Luxembourg company to offer new HIV drug resistance test

    University Hospitals Case Medical Center has signed an agreement with a Luxembourg-based information technology and diagnostic company to design a new HIV drug resistance test. By combining DeepChek, the analytic software of Advanced Biological Laboratories, with DEEPGEN HIV, a molecular diagnostic HIV test invented at UH's Translational Laboratory, the two hope to make available the HIV drug resistance and tropism test in the next four to eight weeks, pending validation.

     

    January 13, 2015
    Cleveland Plain Dealer

  • Learning the hard way: lessons from the Haiti earthquake

    Today marks five years since the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti, with some 220,000 people lost their lives and more than 1.5 million made homeless...In the emergency response that followed, our national partner Promoteurs Objectif Zerosida worked in the camps for internally displaced people to reach groups most at risk of HIV infection and to advocate on behalf of victims of sexual assaults.
    January 12, 2015
    Devex

  • What's behind the decline in new infections

    Global efforts in recent decades to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS...appear to be having an effect. The number of newly infected individuals worldwide is down 38 percent since 2001. Increased government investment in prevention, broad public-information campaigns on healthy behavior, and improved access to health care all are credited with contributing to the decline.
     
    January 12, 2015
    Christian Science Monitor

  • Depo-Provera may hike HIV risk in women

    Increased rates of HIV infection were seen among women using Depo-Provera (DMPA), whereas other methods of contraception including oral contraceptive pills or Net-En, an injectable, did not...,according to Lauren Ralph, University of California at Berkeley, and colleagues....But despite their findings, they stopped short of calling for a ban on this form of contraception.
    January 12, 2015
    MedPage Today

  • The latest study on depo-provera and HIV: far more complex than most headlines suggest

    A newly published study by Lauren Ralph et al and an accompanying commentary in Lancet Infectious Diseases is stirring up questions about the relationship between Depo-Provera and other progestogen-only injectable contraceptives, and the risk of HIV acquisition among HIV-negative women....One interpretation of the study’s results is that there is an urgent need for a trial that would...directly measure HIV rates of women using three different methods: Depo, the Jadelle implant, and the copper IUD.
     
    January 12, 2015
    RH Reality Check

  • The United States should generously support Gavi’s immunization efforts

    An important conference is to be held in Berlin on Jan. 27 to secure financial replenishment for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a multilateral nonprofit that for 15 years has been bringing vaccines to children in the world’s 73 poorest nations. Many attendees will be watching to see what the United States pledges to the effort for the next few years. It ought to be generous.
     
    January 11, 2015
    Washington Post

  • AIDS Update: ARV resistance looms as 40% fail to follow regimen

    "We have made progress but the battle's not won. A fifth of the new infections in the world are taking place in South Africa," said Fareed Abdullah, CEO, SA National AIDS Council. Nearly 40% of people on ARVs don't take them as instructed after three years, amounting to hundreds of thousands of people at risk of drug resistance. Prevention took a back seat once treatment was introduced said Olive Shisana, CEO, Human Sciences Research Council.
    January 11, 2015
    Times Live

  • New study explains why HIV vaccine backfired

    Several studies have discovered that HIV vaccines can backfire and lead to increased rates of the infection, as opposed to reducing or eliminating the viral pathogen.  Now, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences might have an explanation as to why this occurs....“One of the reasons why it has been so difficult to make an AIDS vaccine is that the virus infects the very cells of the immune system that any vaccine is supposed to induce” senior author of the new study Guido Silvestri says.
    January 11, 2015
    Positively Jeffrey

  • Argos tanks as its HIV immunotherapy flunks Phase II

    Argos Therapeutics' HIV treatment failed to meet its main goal in a midstage trial, raising concerns about the company's platform technology and sending its shares spiraling downward. The treatment, AGS-004, is a personalized immunotherapy designed to train patients' T cells to better attack HIV....Despite the miss on efficacy, the Durham, NC, biotech is looking on the bright side....
     
     
    January 9, 2015
    Fierce Biotech

  • US urges Tanzanian media to beef up efforts in fight against HIV/AIDS

    The United States government has called on Tanzanian media to enhance efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS as part of endeavours to achieve an HIV - free generation.  
    Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS, Deborah Birx made the call on Wednesday during a teleconference with Tanzanian journalists at the US-Embassy in Dar es Salaam.
     
    January 9, 2015
    IPP Media

  • Over 500,000 circumcisions performed in KZN

    More than 500,000 men and boys in KwaZulu-Natal have been circumcised without a single death or amputation since 2010, Provincial Health MEC Dr. Sibongiseni Dhlomo reported....He was speaking at an event in Kokstad  Wednesday to welcome 295 men and boys back to their communities after they had undergone initiation through circumcision.
    January 1, 2015
    SA Breaking News

Published Research

  • GSK744 protects macaques from three high-dose SHIV challenges at plasma drug concentrations achievable with quarterly injections in humans

    Long-acting GSK1265744 (GSK744 LA) is a strand transfer inhibitor of the HIV/SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) integrase and was shown to be an effective preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) agent in a low-dose intrarectal SHIV (simian-human immunodeficiency virus) rhesus macaque challenge model. 

    January 16, 2015
    Science

  • Preexposure prophylaxis to prevent bacterial sexually transmitted infections in men who have sex with men

    The explosive increase in bacterial STI among MSM is, in many ways, a consequence of our success fighting HIV. Antiretroviral therapy has rendered that infection treatable, and many MSM have adopted seroadaptive behaviors that likely diminish their HIV risk while driving up their risk of bacterial STI. Although the population-level effects of HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are still unknown, the intervention has the potential to further promote divergent trends in HIV and bacterial STI.
    January 15, 2015
    Sexually Transmitted Diseases

  • HPV transmission in adolescent men who have sex with men

    Men who have sex with men (MSM) have a substantial burden of disease associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, including anogenital warts, anal cancer, penile cancers, and oropharyngeal cancers. However, the dynamics of HPV transmission in young MSM are poorly understood. Understanding of the natural history of HPV infection in men has become increasingly important for policy as more countries consider and adopt sex-neutral HPV vaccination programmes.
    January 15, 2015
    Lancet

  • Accuracy of highly sexually active gay and bisexual men's predictions of their daily likelihood of anal sex and its relevance for intermittent event-driven HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis

    Overall, we found that men were better at predicting when they would not have sex than when they would....[Our] results suggested that, were men taking event-driven intermittent PrEP, 14% of doses could have been safely skipped with a minimal rate of false negatives using guidelines of taking a dose unless there was no chance (i.e., 0% likelihood) of sex on the following day. This would result in a savings of over $1,300 per year in medication costs per participant.
    January 15, 2015
    Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes

  • The anatomy of medical research: US and international comparisons

    Total US funding increased 6% per year (1994-2004), but declined to 0.8% per year (2004-2012). Private sources increased from 46% (1994) to 58% (2012). Industry reduced early-stage research, favoring medical devices, bioengineered drugs, and late-stage clinical trials, particularly for cancer and rare diseases...
    January 15, 2015
    JAMA

  • Estimating HIV protective effects of method adherence with combinations of preexposure prophylaxis and condom use among African American men who have sex with men

    Among African American men who have sex with men with inconsistent or never condomuse, the addition of PrEP at either modest or high adherence can increase HIV protection. For consistent condom users, any PrEP use can increase HIV protection. These analyses provide an approach for rethinking HIV risk management by calculating combined HIV protective effects of using one or more effective prevention methods.
    January 15, 2015
    Sexually Transmitted Diseases

  • Narratives of HIV: measuring understanding of HIV and the law in HIV-positive patients

    People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) remain at risk of prosecution through poor understanding of the law. Clinical services and advocacy agencies should strive to increase understanding in order to enable PLWHA to comprehend the law and negotiate it successfully. This information should be shared as a process, not an isolated event.
    January 15, 2015
    J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care

  • Early viral suppression improves neurocognitive outcomes in HIV-infected children

    We analyzed data from two US-based multisite prospective cohort studies. Conclusion: Virologic suppression during infancy or early childhood is associated with improved neurocognitive outcomes in school-aged PHIV+ children.
     
    January 14, 2015
    AIDS

  • Weighing the risk of drug resistance with the benefits of HIV preexposure prophylaxis

    In this issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, Lehman et al report new information about the risk of antiretroviral resistance from the Partners PrEP Study of men and women in Africa who are partnered with a person living with HIV....The article confirms that drug resistance primarily occurs if systemic HIV infection is present when PrEP is started....Furthermore, drug resistance was primarily to FTC, which leaves multiple options for successful combination antiretroviral therapy....
    January 14, 2015
    PrEP
    J Infect Dis

  • Exceptional opportunities in medical science: a view from the National Institutes of Health

    [N]ew and powerful strategies for vaccine development, based on identifying antigenic regions of the [Ebola] virus that are invariant between different isolates, also apply to [HIV] and AIDS. Although this disease is now compatible with a nearly normal lifespan because of antiretroviral regimens made possible in part by 3 decades of NIH-supported research, a vaccine is still sorely needed. That opportunity looks more encouraging than ever.
    January 13, 2015
    JAMA

  • The long-acting integrase inhibitor GSK744 protects macaques from repeated intravaginal SHIV challenge

    We investigated whether monthly injections of a long-acting formulation of the HIV integrase inhibitor GSK1265744 (GSK744 LA) prevented simian/human immunodeficiency virus infection by vaginal challenge in macaques....GSK744 LA, at plasma concentrations achievable with quarterly injections in humans, protected all six macaques from infection. Efficacy was related to high and sustained vaginal and plasma drug concentrations. These data support advancement of GSK744 LA as a potential PrEP candidate for women.
    January 7, 2015
    Sci Transl Med

  • Trends and patterns of sexual behaviors among adolescents and adults aged 14 to 59 years, United States

    Among adults aged 25 to 59 years, median age at sexual initiation decreased between the 1940–1949 and 1980–1989 cohorts from 17.9 to 16.2 among females and from 17.1 to 16.1 among males. Median lifetime partners increased between the 1940–1949 and 1970–1979 cohorts, from 2.6 to 5.3 among females and from 6.7 to 8.8 among males. A substantial proportion of adolescents are sexually active and have multiple partners.
    December 18, 2014
    Sexually Transmitted Diseases

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