Email Updates

You are here

Home

17 DECEMBER 2021 VOLUME 23 ISSUE 50

Media Coverage

  • Many Effective Interventions That Improve HIV Outcomes for Black Men Who Have Sex With Men Exist – Now They Need To Be Scaled Up

    A range of approaches can be used to address barriers to support Black men who have sex with men (MSM) along the HIV continuum of care, according to a review of US interventions. All 14 interventions reviewed were associated with at least one statistically significant outcome on linkage to care, retention in care, medication adherence, and/or viral suppression.

    December 16, 2021
    General
    aidsmap

  • HIV: FDA Stops All Islatravir Oral and Implant Trials

    Investigational new drug applications were halted for the oral and implant formulations of islatravir, a nucleoside reverse transcriptase translocation inhibitor, for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP); the injectable formulation of islatravir for treatment and prophylaxis; and the oral doravirine/islatravir (DOR/ISL) once-daily treatment, the company announced this week.

    December 16, 2021
    PrEP, Treatment
    Medscape

  • Stakeholders Take Stock of HIV Self-Testing Campaign Effort

    The Faster Project of the Catholic Relief Services Nigeria (CRS) is bringing HIV stakeholders together to take stock and review achievements recorded in ensuring that children and adolescents left behind due to barriers associated with conventional HIV testing models and, particularly given the COVID-19 enforced disruptions to HIV testing, are reached.

    December 15, 2021
    General
    The Guardian

  • Mental Health Support Could Help Suppress HIV Among the Depressed

    After more than 20 years of living with HIV and having an undetectable viral load for most of the time, Nonceba of Khayelitsha in Cape Town did not consider the virus a health threat.

    December 15, 2021
    General
    Times Live

  • NICE To Recommend Offering PrEP to Those at High Risk of HIV, Widening Use of Preventative Treatment

    People with the highest risk of contracting HIV should be offered pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended for the first time.

    December 15, 2021
    PrEP
    Medscape

  • Strategies Are Developing to Boost HIV PrEP Initiation

    There had been more 200,000 pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) initiations in North America from 2016-2020, according to data from AVAC earlier this year. While the US is highly contributory to the gradually increasing rate of HIV-risk persons gaining access to PrEP annually, it’s not enough to consider the work accomplished on a national scale.

    December 15, 2021
    PrEP
    HCP Live

  • FDA’s Outdated Birth Control Guide Blocks Access to the Innovations the Agency Has Approved

    Every day, women in the United States are routinely denied access to the latest birth control methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration.The reason for this may seem unfathomable in a nation so deeply reliant on instant access to the latest information: Health insurers deny covering new contraceptive methods because a single page on the FDA’s website — its Birth Control Guide — fails to include the new and innovative products the agency has spent time and energy reviewing and approving.

    December 14, 2021
    General
    STAT News

  • Uncontrolled HIV Causes the Majority of Deaths in Children With HIV in Western Kenya

    The vast majority of deaths amongst children with HIV in western Kenya are a result of uncontrolled HIV infection, according to a mortality study published in the January issue of AIDS. The study also found that one in six deaths in children under five in Western Kenya are caused by HIV, with around 1 percent of all children born in the region dying as a result of HIV infection.

    December 14, 2021
    Treatment
    aidsmap

  • Coming Soon to a Butt Near You: Injectable PrEP

    The burden of taking a daily dose of PrEP might soon be lifted. According to updated CDC guidelines, bi-monthly injectable PrEP is expected to receive FDA approval by February. The injectable cabotegravir (CAB) would join Truvada and Descovy as a third, pill-free PrEP option.

    December 14, 2021
    PrEP
    Pride Source

  • Could a Targeted Immunotherapy Strategy Lead to a 'Functional' HIV Cure?

    A new therapy that activates an immune system’s “killer” T cells to multiply and attack T cells infected with HIV could lead to a “functional cure” for HIV, allowing people living with HIV (PLWH) to discontinue antiretroviral therapy (ART). That’s according to authors of a study published in October in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

    December 14, 2021
    Cure
    TheBodyPro

  • Zimbabwe Makes Strides in HIV/AIDS Prevention

    Zimbabwe continues to write an HIV and AIDS success story due to prevention interventions, with 97 percent of people living with HIV now on lifelong anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

    December 13, 2021
    Treatment
    Chronicle

  • Digital Pill Accurately Tracks HIV PrEP Adherence

    Oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is 98 percent effective when taken regularly, but adherence to a PrEP regimen is severely lacking. A novel digital pill consisting of emtricitabine/tenofovir (TDF/FTC; Truvada) was tested to evaluate whether a digital record of PrEP ingestion would boost adherence.

    December 13, 2021
    PrEP
    Contagion Live

  • HIV Testing Dips During Pandemic Raise Transmission Concerns

    HIV testing centers across the US showed reductions in testing of nearly 50 percent during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, raising concerns of a subsequent increase in transmission by people unaware of their HIV-positive status.

    December 13, 2021
    Treatment
    Medscape

  • Overdose Prevention Centres Will Save Lives, Say UK Senior Doctors

    Drug addicts should be allowed to use illicit substances in “supervised injecting facilities” with medical staff on hand to ensure no one dies, health groups are urging ministers. Senior doctors, public health specialists, drug experts and health charities want the government to approve trials of “overdose prevention centres” (OPCs) to cut Britain’s soaring toll of drug deaths. Supporters of the idea say that while letting users consume hard drugs in safe places, watched over by nurses and doctors, is controversial, it reduces fatalities and drug-related crime.

    December 12, 2021
    General
    The Guardian

  • An mRNA Vaccine Against HIV Shows Promise in Animal Trials

    Cutting-edge mRNA technology brought safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines to a world in crisis -- could it do the same for a much older foe, HIV?

    December 10, 2021
    HIV Vaccine
    US News & World Report

  • Your Status Is Nobody’s Business but Your Own

    During a scene in the 2008 film Milk, the gay activist and politician Harvey Milk insisted that every gay person working on his campaign who had not yet disclosed their sexuality to their family do so immediately.

    December 10, 2021
    General
    The Body

  • Moving From Two-Test to Three-Test HIV Diagnoses

    The toolkit is based on recommendations the WHO made in 2019. The main recommendation is that countries should move from a two-test to a three-test diagnosis strategy as their HIV epidemics change. As a general rule, WHO recommends that a number of tests should be used to achieve an accurate HIV diagnosis (defined as less than one false-positive per 100 people diagnosed with HIV). Before, WHO recommended two positive tests to diagnose HIV. It now recommends countries with HIV prevalence below 5 percent use three tests.

    December 9, 2021
    General
    Avert

  • Stool Samples From the 1980s Hold Clues to Fighting HIV Today

    What do all the microbes living rent-free in your gut have to do with disease risk? Perhaps a lot.

    December 9, 2021
    Treatment
    US News & World Report

  • Practitioners and Policies Create Barriers to PrEP and HIV Testing for Young People in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Healthcare workers providing PrEP in Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are largely supportive of PrEP as an HIV prevention option for adolescent girls and young women, but many have negative attitudes about adolescent girls being sexually active and concerns about their ability to adhere to PrEP, according to a recent study published in BMC Health Services Research.

    December 8, 2021
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Not Lost

    People tell Harold Phillips, MRP, that he’s an extrovert. But he’s not so sure, especially when it comes to “the work”—his life’s work advocating for people affected by HIV and making policy in state and federal government agencies.

    November 15, 2021
    General
    POZ

Published Research

Announcements