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18 NOVEMBER 2022 VOLUME 24 ISSUE 46

Media Coverage

  • The End of Vaccines at ‘Warp Speed’

    Operation Warp Speed, the Trump-era program that poured billions of dollars into developing COVID-19 shots, seemed to signal a new dawn of American vaccine making, demonstrating how decades of scientific grunt work could be turned into lifesaving medicine in a matter of months. But as a third pandemic winter begins in the United States, its vaccine-making effort has lost steam.

    November 18, 2022
    General
    The New York Times

  • HIV Prevention: Clinician Attitudes May Be Curtailing PrEP Use

    Taking an antiretroviral tablet daily for preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has been shown to be a safe and effective method of HIV prevention. However, low and variable uptake of PrEP among men who have sex with men (MSM) remains concerning. Clinician attitudes appear to be one of the barriers to PrEP use, according to a new study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

    November 17, 2022
    PrEP
    Medscape

  • As STDs Proliferate, Companies Rush to Market At-Home Test Kits. But Are They Reliable?

    Among the more remarkable legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic is how quickly federal regulators, the health care industry, and consumers moved to make at-home testing a reliable tool for managing a public health crisis. But that fast-track focus is missing from another, less publicized epidemic: an explosion in sexually transmitted diseases that can cause chronic pain and infertility among infected adults and disable or kill infected newborns.

    November 17, 2022
    General
    CBS News

  • The Barriers to PrEP Uptake Among People Who Inject Drugs

    Since 2012, medications designed to protect people from contracting HIV have been hard at work. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), as they’re collectively known, can take the form of shots or, more commonly, a daily pill, depending on the specific drug and source of risk. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PrEP “reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99 percent when taken as prescribed.” The agency notes that PrEP, alongside other measures, has played a part in reducing US HIV transmissions by 8 percent between 2015 and 2019.

    November 17, 2022
    PrEP
    Filter Mag

  • Why Global Health Remains Bipartisan

    With deep political divides on Capitol Hill and across the country, there is almost no topic on which both Republicans and Democrats can agree. But global health has defied the odds, becoming the rare issue that has received robust support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for decades. There are many reasons why the global health consensus has proven so resilient, but perhaps the most straightforward is it has been a very good investment with astonishing results in saving lives.

    November 17, 2022
    General
    Think Global Health

  • WHO, Uganda Plan To Test Three Candidate Ebola Vaccines in Outbreak

    The World Health Organization and the government of Uganda plan to test three candidate Ebola vaccines in a clinical trial during the ongoing outbreak in the East African nation, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced Wednesday, acting on the advice of experts convened by the global health agency.

    November 16, 2022
    General
    STAT

  • Opinions of Oral Versus Injectable HIV PrEP in a Racially Diverse Cohort

    Daily oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) safely and effectively prevents HIV infection when used as directed. However, for some populations, taking a pill every day is not feasible. Challenges with oral PrEP uptake and adherence have driven the development of new PrEP modalities. Most significantly, long-acting injectable PrEP is now approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

    November 16, 2022
    PrEP
    Contagion Live

  • Good News for Patients as HIV Medicine Prices Drop Dramatically

    The national Department of Health (DOH) has managed to secure a significant reduction in prices for antiretroviral medicines that treat HIV, with the price of the regimen that is prescribed to most new patients (tenofovir/lamivudine/dolutegravir — TLD) dropping over 30 percent, from R99 to R68. By comparison, the regimen costs well over R250 in the private sector.

    November 16, 2022
    Treatment
    Daily Maverick

  • Nearly All of Zimbabwe’s HIV-Positive Population Is Undetectable

    Zimbabwe—a country where in 2020 over 11 percent of the population had HIV—just confirmed that 95 percent of its HIV-positive population has reached undetectable levels of the virus. Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care confirmed the figure on Nov. 9, meaning that 95 percent of the HIV-positive population cannot transmit it, local publication New Ziana reported.

    November 16, 2022
    General
    Xtra Magazine

  • Bringing Sexy Back — To Fight HIV

    Efforts to make sex safer almost always focus on the bad stuff: what to do to avoid a terrible infection or potentially deadly virus. They rarely acknowledge the good stuff: usually the reason people have sex in the first place. And that’s why safe sex campaigns throughout the world aren’t as effective as they could be.

    November 15, 2022
    General
    New York Times

  • Stop Telling People I Was Born With HIV

    One of the universal rules of the HIV world is that you do not ask someone how they acquired HIV, and yet our peers regularly share our transmission route without our consent. We are writing this letter to everyone and anyone involved in HIV advocacy. Over the past few years, there’s been a greater appreciation of the specific experiences of individuals born with HIV and the need for our stories to be told. However, it has also led to clumsiness and carelessness – sharing our transmission routes without permission.

    November 15, 2022
    General
    aidsmap

  • Has HIV PrEP Uptake Increased Among High-Risk Persons?

    Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is highly effective at preventing HIV. However, the individuals with the highest risk of HIV infection are often not currently on a PrEP regimen. One study, presented at the recent IDWeek conference, sought to determine whether high-risk persons were taking emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (FTC/TDF) PrEP.

    November 15, 2022
    PrEP
    Contagion Live

  • ‘HIV Can Kill Faster Than the Drug Abuse’: Nigeria Opens First Needle Exchange To Tackle Infection

    All it took were a few puffs on a friend’s cigarette at a university party to begin a life of addiction. Abiola* was 21 and the tobacco was laced with cocaine. “From that moment, the journey has been good, bad and ugly. I graduated from being a user to a dealer,” says the 53-year-old network administrator, who has spent time in prison over his drug use.

    November 14, 2022
    General
    The Guardian

  • Keeping It Real About HIV Prevention

    Every day in 2003, an estimated 14,000 people globally were newly infected with HIV, according to the World Health Organization. I was one of them. I know that many people say, well, HIV is not what it was in 2003, and today, we have medications that work better. That’s true, but if I had the opportunity in 2003 to take a pill that would have reduced the chances of me being positive, I would be all over it.

    November 14, 2022
    General
    POZ Magazine

  • Ending the HIV Epidemic: How to Get Back on Track

    In 2019, the United States government announced the Ending the HIV Epidemic plan. The ambitious initiative aims to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030. The plan underscores the importance of testing, prevention, and treatment, seeking to reduce the number of new HIV infections by 75 percent by 2025 and at least 90 percent by 2030.

    November 14, 2022
    General
    Pharmacy Times

  • HIV Myths Busted: Everything You Need To Know About Your Prevention Options

    Over the last decade, the fight against HIV has been transformed by medical breakthroughs. England is on track to end new transmissions by 2030, with the HIV prevention medication PrEP, alongside more traditional methods of prevention (HIV testing, condoms, and U=U), proving to “accelerate the downtrend in new HIV infections in recent years”, according to Robbie Currie, lead commissioner of London’s HIV prevention program branded: Do It London.

    November 14, 2022
    General
    PinkNews

  • How Lessons From the HIV Epidemic Can Help Combat COVID-19

    Three lessons learned from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic were published by an international group of public health researchers in April 2020 in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). These included anticipation of health inequalities, engagement in multidisciplinary efforts, and creating an environment to support effective behavioral changes. However, the context of these lessons has changed since their original publication.

    November 13, 2022
    General
    News Medical

  • Do Broadly Neutralising Antibodies Really Have a Future in Treating HIV?

    Although much research is currently exploring how broadly neutralising antibodies may help prevent, treat, or cure HIV, some scientists suggest that without substantially improving their performance, the antibodies’ future role in treating HIV may be scant. The authors of a recent perspective piece published in Clinical Infectious Diseases cite several hurdles to surmount before antibody treatments could serve as viable alternatives to existing antiretroviral therapies.

    November 11, 2022
    General
    aidsmap

  • Less and Late: UK Gives $1 Billion to Global Disease Fight

    The British government said on Monday it would contribute 1 billion pounds ($1.18 billion) to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, more than six weeks after other countries made their commitments. The total, which covers 2023-25, is 30 percent less than Britain pledged during the previous funding round in 2019, and below the 1.8 billion pounds requested this time.

    November 11, 2022
    General
    Reuters

  • Food Insecurity Is Driving Women in Africa Into Sex Work, Increasing HIV Risk

    The first time she traded sex for food to feed her family, J was 14 years old. Her father died when she was an infant, leaving her single mother to care for her and her six siblings in her native village in eastern Uganda. She soon gave birth to a baby girl, and her family continued to struggle to eat. So at 16, lured by a relative and the prospect of earning money as a maid, J left her baby behind and traveled 101 miles to the capital to find work so she could send money back home.

    November 11, 2022
    General
    NPR

  • Prison Program for HIV PrEP Enrolls 93 Percent of Eligible People

    More than 90 percent of eligible incarcerated people initiated HIV PrEP during a study conducted in 16 Zambian criminal justice facilities in what researchers said was likely the first description of a PrEP program in a criminal justice system. “While HIV testing is conducted routinely upon correctional facility entry and the Government of Zambia began offering PrEP services in the general population in 2016, PrEP was not made available to incarcerated people prior to the program described in the study,” Brianna R.

    November 11, 2022
    PrEP
    Healio

  • How Climate Change Is Impacting People Living With HIV and Medication Access in South Africa

    South Africa, the nation with the world’s largest HIV burden, is now battling deepening climate change upheavals. If attention doesn’t shift fast, the climate could reverse splendid antiretroviral drug (ARVs) gains made so far. In April, nearly 500 lives were tragically lost when floods hit KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in the worst weather calamity in 60 years in South Africa. KZN province also has South Africa’s highest HIV rates.

    November 11, 2022
    General
    TheBody

  • LGBTQ Advocacy Group Sues Pentagon, Army Over Ban on HIV-Positive Recruits

    An LGBTQ advocacy group sued the Department of Defense and the Army on Thursday over a policy barring HIV-positive individuals from enlisting in the military. Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization that focuses on the LGBTQ community and those living with HIV/AIDS, filed the lawsuit on behalf of several individuals it says either were denied entry into the Army over their HIV-positive status or left the Army following their diagnosis and are seeking to return.

    November 11, 2022
    General
    The Hill

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