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2 MAY 2014, VOLUME 15, ISSUE 18

Media Coverage

  • Thanks for Nothing: iPrEX volunteers shut out of PrEP's success

    Most foreign volunteers who participated in the clinical trial that first proved Truvada prevents HIV no longer have access to the drug.

    May 2, 2014
    PrEP
    POZ

  • US science chiefs field questions, hard and soft, at innovation hearing

    Members of a key congressional spending panel voiced strong, bipartisan support yesterday for increasing the federal investment in basic research....The hearing, titled "Driving Innovation through Federal Investment," was designed to showcase the enormous payoff to society from federal funding of academic research over the decades, from the Internet and stealth technology to MRI and better weather forecasting.

    April 30, 2014
    Science

  • Coral reefs provide potent new anti-HIV proteins

    Researchers have discovered a new class of proteins capable of blocking the HIV virus from penetrating T-cells, raising hope that the proteins could be adapted for use in gels or sexual lubricants to provide a potent barrier against HIV infection. The proteins, called cnidarins, were found in a feathery coral collected in waters off Australia's northern coast.

    April 29, 2014
    Science Daily

  • Uganda drafts new anti-gay law targeting NGOs

    Uganda has drafted a new law that would bar non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from promoting homosexuality, tightening rules further after anti-gay legislation in February was widely condemned as draconian. The draft, now being studied by the cabinet before being introduced in parliament, would also ban foreign NGOs from meddling in the east African country's politics, junior internal affairs minister James Baba told Reuters on Monday.

    April 28, 2014
    Reuters

  • Bangladesh fights off HIV

    Shohagi, 19, walks down a corridor to an audience of about a dozen commercial sex workers. In a loud and confident voice, the fellow sex worker shares her knowledge on the use of the condom. "This is your protection from any sexually transmitted disease (STD). Without it you could suffer a lot," warns the young girl at a drop-in centre (DIC) organised by the Bangladesh Manobadhikar Sangbadik Forum (BMSF), an NGO working to prevent the transmission of HIV and other STDs....

    April 28, 2014
    IPS

  • Rabbis approve guide for HIV prevention

    The number of new HIV infections in Israel has been on the rise in the past few years, including among men from the religious sector. A new first-of-its-kind booklet for religious homosexuals aims to guide them on how to avoid contracting the virus. The introduction to the booklet, called "Venishamrtem" ("Get Protected"), was written by a rabbi and approved by other Jewish religious leaders....
     

    April 28, 2014
    Ynetnews

  • Mamnoon meets UN envoy: Pakistan working for AIDS prevention

    President Mamnoon Hussain on Friday urged the international community to help the developing and underdeveloped countries in reducing risks of HIV and AIDS by sharing knowledge and expertise. He was talking to United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Asia & Pacific JVR Prasada Rao at the Presidency.

    April 28, 2014
    Express Tribune

  • Study links war on malaria to reduction in HIV cases

    Malaria prevention and treatment in pregnant HIV-positive women may enhance the effectiveness of HIV prevention in mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) programmes, a new study shows. The study, conducted in more than 2,000 Tanzanian women, calls for universal access to insecticide-treated bed nets and "large-scale dissemination of information regarding the possible malaria-associated higher risk of HIV MTCT".....

    April 26, 2014
    East African

  • New CEO takes the reins at the Gates Foundation

    Susan Desmond-Hellmann takes charge of an organisation hungry for accelerated returns on its game-changing investments in global health, David Holmes reports. After 5 years as the Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Desmond-Hellmann will take the helm as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as the organisation continues to sharpen its focus on reaping the social dividend from its huge investments in global health and development.

    April 26, 2014
    The Lancet

  • The Angel in Larry Kramer

    ...I dreaded Larry Kramer, and sometimes I even detested Larry Kramer, but always - always - I knew that he was on the side of the angels and that we needed him there....

    How to honor that? To thank him? I'm not sure there's any adequate way, though there is, finally, a tribute that he long craved, sought and despaired of ever seeing, a movie version of "The Normal Heart," his strident and devastating play of the plague years, during which his thinly fictionalized alter ego, Ned Weeks, tries to sound an early alarm....

    April 26, 2014
    New York Times

  • Cervical cancer increases among young Chinese women

    Xinhuanet.com reported that a leading health expert revealed this week that cervical cancer is increasing among Chinese women, particularly those younger than 35. Younger women make up almost one-third of new cases, compared to fewer than 5 percent in the 1980s. According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, China reports approximately 130,000 new cases of cervical cancer and 30,000 related deaths each year.

    April 25, 2014
    HPV Vaccines
    Xinhuanet

  • 1.55M young Nigerians living with HIV/AIDS - experts

    The National Mirror reported that Medical Practitioner and Researcher Dr. Otibho Obianwu announced that at least 1.55 million young Nigerians currently have HIV/AIDS and more than 50 million are at risk for contracting the disease from unprotected sex. Obianwu made these statements during a media researcher advocacy workshop organized by Population Council, an international nongovernmental organization, in Lagos on April 23.

    April 25, 2014
    National Mirror

  • FDA approves pap smear alternative for cervical cancer screening

    The Washington Post reported that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week approved the use of a DNA test to detect cervical cancer as a first-choice option in women older than 25 rather than the long-used Pap smear. The Roche Molecular Diagnostics DNA test can detect 14 of the numerous human papillomavirus (HPV) strains, including two that cause cervical cancer. Healthcare providers currently use it to confirm Pap smear results, but now they can use it as a first choice instead of the Pap smear....

    April 25, 2014
    Washington Post

  • Plan to sell condoms in schools encounters resistance

    Officials in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, want secondary schools to sell condoms on campus to help combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, stirring a heated controversy among parents and educators. Some teachers warned that the measure would encourage promiscuity among students, whereas reactions among parents were "mixed," the Huashang News reported....

    April 24, 2014
    New York Times

  • As mixed-status HIV couples weigh risks, more choose to conceive the old-fashioned way

    When Susan Hartmann got married, she and her husband knew that they had to be careful. Given that she's HIV-negative and he's HIV-positive, they had to be vigilant about protected sex. But later, they decided they wanted to start a family. After hearing about high-tech assisted reproduction techniques that could help them conceive safely, they sought advice from the perinatal HIV clinic at the University of California at San Francisco.

    April 24, 2014
    Washington Post

  • Gates Foundation seeks to merge science and delivery of global health

    Everyone knows that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation likes technology, inventing new things and helping others find innovative ways to fight diseases of poverty and other scourges that afflict those living in the poorest parts of the world. The world's biggest philanthropy has reorganized to devote its global health program, run by former Novartis executive Trevor Mundel, almost entirely to supporting research aimed at finding new drugs or vaccines....

    April 24, 2014
    Humanosphere

  • Malawi to launch HIV+ youths' association

    Nyasa Times reported that Malawi will team with private organizations to officially launch the National Association of Young People Living with HIV (YPLHIV) on May 2, with the theme "Making the Three Zeros Work for Young People Living with HIV and AIDS in Malawi." President Joyce Banda, the minister responsible for people with HIV and AIDS, will officiate at the ceremony....
     

    April 23, 2014
    Nyasa Times

  • How far we've come in 30 years of HIV research

    David Hyde talks with Mitchell Warren about the breakthroughs and challenges of HIV prevention over the last 30 years. Warren is the executive director of AVAC, an international non-governmental organization that works on HIV prevention.

    April 17, 2014
    KUOW.Org

  • Chlamydia sets US record for most cases of reportable disease

    CNS News reported that approximately 20 million Americans are infected with an STD annually and a record-breaking nearly 1.5 million new cases of chlamydia were reported in 2012, which according to a CDC spokesperson, is "the largest number of reported cases for any notifiable disease in the [United States]."

    April 8, 2014
    CDC NPIN

Published Research

  • Global health and the law

    The past two decades have brought revolutionary changes in global health, driven by popular concern over the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), new strains of influenza, and maternal mortality. International development assistance for health - a crucial aspect of health cooperation - increased by a factor of five, from $5.6 billion in 1990 to $28.1 billion in 2012, with the private and voluntary sectors taking on an ever-increasing share of the total.

    May 27, 2014
    N Engl J Med.

  • Letting HIV transform academia--embracing implementation science

    The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic has had an extraordinary global impact. Even as it has devastated societies, it has also inspired community empowerment, motivated impressive scientific discoveries, and provoked an unprecedented mobilization of vast resources for a single health condition. Not yet fully realized, however, is the epidemic's potential for expanding the core mission of academic institutions to include the pursuit of a wider range of research....

    May 27, 2014
    N Engl J Med.

  • Sexual risk behaviour and viral suppression among HIV-infected adults receiving medical care in the United States

    Abstract

    Results and conclusions: An estimated 98,022(24%) HIV-infected adults engaged in unprotected vaginal or anal sex; 50,953 (12%) engaged in unprotected vaginal or anal sex with at least one partner of negative or unknown HIV status; 23,933 (6%) did so while not virally suppressed. Persons who were virally suppressed were less likely than persons who were not suppressed to engage in vaginal or anal sex; unprotected vaginal or anal sex; and unprotected vaginal or anal sex with a partner of negative or unknown HIV status....

    May 15, 2014
    AIDS

  • Contraceptive practices and fertility desires among HIV-infected and uninfected women in Kenya: results from a nationally representative study

    Abstract
     
    Results:     Of 3583 respondents, 68.2% were currently using FP, and 57.7% did not desire children in the future. Among women who did not desire children in the future, 70.9% reported that they were using FP, including 68.7% of women with known HIV infection and 71.0% of women who were HIV uninfected. Women with known HIV infection had similar odds of using FP as women with no HIV infection. Women with no HIV infection had significantly higher adjusted odds of desiring future children than women with known HIV infection.
     

    May 1, 2014
    JAIDS

  • Another chink in HIV's armor may point the way to a vaccine

    A weakness in the HIV virus exposed by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) may provide clues for designing a much-sought HIV vaccine...This discovery highlights a new site on the HIV virus that could be attacked by such antibodies to neutralize the infectivity of a wide variety of HIV strains.

    April 29, 2014
    HIV Vaccine
    FierceBiotechResearch

  • Low cholesterol in immune cells tied to slow progression of HIV

    People infected with HIV whose immune cells have low cholesterol levels experience much slower disease progression, even without medication, according to University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health research that could lead to new strategies to control infection. The Pitt Public Health researchers found that low cholesterol in certain cells, which is likely an inherited trait, affects the ability of the body to transmit the virus to other cells.

    April 29, 2014
    Science Daily

  • USPSTF: Behavioral counseling to prevent STIs

    Monthly Prescribing Reference reported that as a way of decreasing the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that sexually active women get screened for chlamydia and gonorrhea, and that all sexually active individuals receive intensive behavioral counseling. Two contributing studies prompted the recommendation....

    April 28, 2014
    Health Day News

  • Researchers trace HIV adaptation to its human host

    "Much research has focused on how HIV adapts to antiviral drugs -- we wanted to investigate how HIV adapts to us, its human host, over time," says lead author Zabrina Brumme from Simon Fraser University. In a study published in PLOS Genetics, which traces the evolution of HIV in North America, the Brumme lab and colleagues at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Harvard University, the New York Blood Center, and The San Francisco Department of Public Health found evidence that the virus is slowly adapting over time to its human hosts.

    April 24, 2014
    Science Daily

  • Report: Medical injections linked to new HIV infections in Kenya

    Standard Digital News reported that according to the Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey, a large number of Kenyans have acquired HIV infections from contaminated medical injections....The report estimates that 2.2 percent of new HIV infections in 2008 resulted from unsafe injections at health facilities. Since then, more people, including HIV-positive patients, have continued to receive various injections at these facilities, leading to increased infection management issues for Kenya's medical system.

    April 21, 2014
    Standard Digital

  • STI, HIV prevention efforts urged for teenage MSM

    Healio reported on a study of teenage men who have sex with men's risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Huachun Zou, MD, PhD, of the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, and colleagues evaluated 200 same-sex attracted males ages 16-20 in Melbourne, Australia....

    April 15, 2014

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