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16 SEPTEMBER 2022 VOLUME 24 ISSUE 37

Media Coverage

  • Key Population-Led Services Now Account for the Majority of Thai PrEP Users

    Key population-led services are now supporting 82 percent of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) users in Thailand — just three years after the country legalised key provider-led PrEP. The number of PrEP users from key population-led programmes has nearly doubled since the country moved to provide the services free of charge as part of its universal healthcare.

    September 16, 2022
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Another Judge Just Made Things Weird Between Employers and Employees Over Sexual Health

    For Kenyon Farrow and Jeremiah Johnson of PrEP4All—and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who rely on the HIV prevention pill—last week’s ruling by a federal judge in Texas that employers are not required to provide health insurance plans that cover preventive services like PrEP was dismaying—although not entirely surprising.

    September 15, 2022
    PrEP
    Fast Company

  • Pressure Mounts Against HIV Criminalization as Prosecutions Continue

    Roughly 30 states still have some form of HIV criminalization law or sentencing enhancement on the books. Advocates say it’s long past time for change. When Robert Suttle talks about his conviction for knowingly exposing someone to HIV, he doesn’t mince words. “My character, the things that I’ve done in life that I’ve achieved, are counter to this perception of me as a criminal,” Suttle said. “It just doesn’t align.”

    September 15, 2022
    General
    The Appeal

  • New CDC Data: STD Rates Shot Up in 2021

    Syphilis rates jumped 26 percent last year — the biggest annual increase since the Truman administration — amid a broader rise in sexually transmitted infections that worsened considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic. The preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this month shows the steep escalation of an alarming national trend, and comes as local health departments are still battling COVID-19 and contending with an unprecedented monkeypox outbreak.

    September 15, 2022
    General
    Politico

  • Biden’s Monkeypox Adviser Is Trying Manage a Virus While Dodging Talk of Satanism

    Sitting in a coffee shop a couple of blocks from the White House on a Friday afternoon, Demetre Daskalakis is crying. His iced coffee with almond milk sits on the table, melting and mostly untouched. “Jeez, I’m not supposed to cry in front of POLITICO,” he laughs. Daskalakis moved back to Washington, DC, just weeks ago from Atlanta, after President Joe Biden brought him on as the monkeypox deputy response coordinator.

    September 15, 2022
    General
    Politico

  • Beyond the US: Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Global Health Contributions

    When Dr. Anthony Fauci announced that he is stepping down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, and as chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden in December, news outlets were quick to give a rundown of his career highlights. He advised seven US presidents, played a significant role in tackling the HIV and AIDS crisis in the US, and became the face of the US COVID-19 response.

    September 15, 2022
    General
    Devex

  • Why Monkeypox Wasn’t Another COVID-19

    When you’ve lived through two-plus years of a pandemic, it can feel weird to see “disease” and “good news” in the same sentence. But here we are, watching a disease decline, with cautious optimism. Two weeks ago, the World Health Organization announced that monkeypox cases in Europe had fallen so fast, the outbreak could be eliminated there. And while the US recently experienced its first monkeypox death, cases here have fallen by 40 percent between the middle and end of August.

    September 14, 2022
    General
    FiveThirtyEight

  • HIV Vaccine Still Years Away, Former AIDS Society Head Warns

    The use of messenger RNA to make vaccines for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic has reinvigorated a decades-long hunt for a shot to safeguard against HIV, but the development process will still be a protracted one, according to a leading South African scientist. An HIV vaccine is “more than five years away,” although the application of mRNA technology may help accelerate production, Linda-Gail Bekker, the executive director of the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and a former president of the International AIDS Society, said in an interview in Cape Town on Tuesday.

    September 14, 2022
    General
    Bloomberg

  • Dolutegravir Offers Superior HIV Suppression in Pregnant Women

    Undetectable equals untransmissible (U=U), meaning that people with HIV who achieve an undetectable viral load via antiretroviral therapy (ART) will not be at risk of passing on the infection. Maintaining an undetectable viral load is especially vital for pregnant people, to ensure there will be no vertical transmission of HIV to their babies.

    September 14, 2022
    Treatment
    Contagion Live

  • Defying Science, American Parents Are Turning Away From Male Circumcision

    My wife and I are currently expecting our first child in late October, a boy, and we recently started discussing whether or not to circumcise. For those unaware, circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin covering the tip of the penis. I entered the discussion in favor, but with no strong feelings either way. However, after researching the scientific literature and expert opinion, I came out firmly for the procedure, and frankly somewhat frustrated at the recent trend against it.

    September 14, 2022
    Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision
    Big Think

  • Monkeypox, COVID-19, AIDS: Have We Progressed So Little?

    As a young man, I watched an epidemic wash over the bodies of dozens I knew and loved, carrying them away while many people went blithely about the ordinary business of their lives. Starting in the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic, as the late activist Vito Russo said, was “like living through a war which is happening only for those people who happen to be in the trenches”.

    September 13, 2022
    General
    Nature

  • We’ve Been on the Frontlines for HIV/AIDS. Here’s How To Fight Monkeypox.

    Amid the ongoing global monkeypox outbreak, some worry it may be too late to effectively control — let alone eliminate — the disease from areas where it’s not endemic, given the nature and extent of the global spread. However, likely due to a combination of reduction in risk behaviors and the availability of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, we’re currently observing numbers of new monkeypox cases plateauing, or gradually declining, in several countries in Europe, as well as certain areas in the United States.

    September 13, 2022
    General
    Politico

  • Systemic Stigma: Tennessee’s Anti-HIV Law Enforcement Targets People of Colour, Trans People, and Poor People

    At least 154 people living with HIV have been placed on Tennessee’s sex offender registry and labelled as a “violent sexual offender” for charges stemming from their HIV-positive status, according to a report published by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles. Many of those impacted also had to serve time in prison. There are alarming disparities by race, class, and geography in enforcement of two HIV-specific laws which are largely wielded against Black people and those living in Memphis

    September 12, 2022
    General
    aidsmap

  • Malaysia May Get Long-Acting Preventive HIV Drug In 2027

    Malaysia will likely have access to generic versions of long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA), the first injectable medication to prevent HIV, in 2027, at the earliest, along with other “second-tier” countries. In an announcement last month, ViiV Healthcare agreed to provide access to affordable generic versions of its long-acting cabotegravir, Apretude, in 90 countries categorised as least developed, low-income, and lower-middle-income, where over 70 per cent of all new HIV infections occurred in 2020.

    September 12, 2022
    PrEP
    CodeBlue

  • ‘Time To Put Ideas Into Action’ in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Says Durban Mayor

    EThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda called for more co-operation in the fight against HIV/AIDS and appealed for ideas put forward to combat the scourge to be put into action. Kaunda was addressing the eThekwini District AIDS Council. He called for communities, civil society organisations, government and the private sector to work together to reverse the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

    September 12, 2022
    General
    IOL News

  • $33 Million Invested To Break the Cycle of HIV Transmission in Africa

    The Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) recently announced a $33 million commitment to accelerate progress in fighting HIV transmission in up to five priority countries, a donation made through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which aims to further strengthen this commitment with at least $1.5 for every $1 committed by CIFF.

    September 12, 2022
    General
    Al Día

  • Allow People With HIV and Hepatitis B to Enlist in the Military, Urge Lawmakers

    Two identical congressional letters—one signed by six senators; the other by 34 representatives—urge President Joe Biden to direct the Department of Defense (DoD) to allow people with “well-managed” HIV and hepatitis B virus (HBV) to enlist, seek appointment and otherwise serve in the military, according to a press statement from Representative Mike Quigley (D–Ill.).

    September 12, 2022
    General
    POZ Magazine

  • HIV Vaccine Ingredient Shows Promise in Primates

    A potential vaccine component has led to strong protection against HIV in primates, a new study shows.To block infection from HIV, a successful vaccine will require a combination of ingredients, including at least three antibody targets and a substance that boosts immune responses. The new study takes a step toward achieving that goal. The new component elicits an antibody that binds to part of HIV’s outer envelope, the researchers report.

    September 12, 2022
    HIV Vaccine
    Futurity

  • The Top White House Monkeypox Doc Takes Stock of the Outbreak — And What’s Next

    The US monkeypox outbreak appears to be slowing. New infections are starting to decline in some large cities where the virus hit early and spread quickly. And while there's still uncertainty, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently projecting that the outbreak "will most likely continue to grow very slowly" over the next few weeks. Health officials say it's cause for cautious optimism – but not complacency.

    September 12, 2022
    General
    NPR

  • CDC Report Shows People With Monkeypox Have Higher Than Expected Rates of HIV and STIs

    In a recent study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers investigated the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and other recent sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnoses among persons with monkeypox.The current outbreak of monkeypox, caused by the monkeypox virus belonging to the same family of viruses as the smallpox virus, has a high incidence rate among persons who are gay and bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM).

    September 12, 2022
    General
    News Medical

  • Texas’ PrEP Ruling Goes Against Common Sense

    An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As an HIV doctor in central Texas, I know that nowhere is that adage truer than in the case of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that is up to 99 percent effective at preventing HIV. A recent ruling in a Texas federal court has the potential to threaten not just PrEP but access to all commonsense preventive medical care for people in the US.

    September 11, 2022
    PrEP
    NBC News

  • Why a Texas Health Care Ruling Could Have Dire Impacts on Affordability of Care

    Affordable health care in the United States falls far behind other developed nations and is especially unattainable for certain racial minorities and low-income Americans. A new ruling out of Texas could make matters even worse. Federal Judge Reed O’Connor struck down Wednesday a key provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires employer-sponsored insurance to cover certain preventive services — including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that drastically reduces the likelihood of contracting HIV — to ensure patients would not shoulder out-of-pocket costs.

    September 10, 2022
    PrEP
    The Hill

  • Tracking the Lifespan of HIV Host Cells

    A new study from Los Alamos National Laboratory sought to understand the dynamics of the cells that produce HIV. A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, led by Robert Siciliano, MD, collaborated with the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory to explore their hypothesis that HIV cells have varying decay rates. The investigators used a mathematical model to simulate viral infection and treatment. They confirmed that virus levels declined in 2 phases, a fast phase followed by a second, slow phase.

    September 10, 2022
    General
    Contagion Live

  • PrEP at 10: Medication ‘Added a Lot of Energy to HIV Prevention’

    More than 40 years ago, on June 5, 1981, a report of five cases of Pneumocystis pneumonia among young men in Los Angeles marked the first account of what would come to be called AIDS. More than 30 years into the fight, on July 16, 2012, the FDA approved HIV PrEP, which became a “game-changer” in the decades-long fight to end the pandemic because it created confidence in HIV prevention without requiring major behavioral changes, said Infectious Disease News Chief Medical Editor Paul A. Volberding, MD, professor emeritus of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

    September 9, 2022
    PrEP
    Infectious Disease News

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