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20 MAY 2022 VOLUME 24 ISSUE 20

Media Coverage

  • HIV Care Has Improved Dramatically—But Not for Everyone

    On a sweltering June day in 2021, Nicole, whose real name has been changed to protect her privacy, walked into an HIV treatment clinic in Atlanta, Ga., expecting something different. She had shouldered a lifetime of discrimination for being both Black and transgender while also dealing with HIV, diabetes and hypertension. She worked as a manager of a fast-food restaurant while parenting several LGBTQ youths. Accessing consistent health care was a daily battle, and Nicole’s past interactions with providers had left her feeling discouraged. But she and I had hit it off during a previous telemedicine appointment, so she scheduled a face-to-face visit at the clinic where I worked. As a Black, same-gender-loving physician, I wanted to do better by her.

    June 1, 2022
    Treatment
    Scientific American

  • CDC Study Shows Link Between Socioeconomic Factors and HIV Among Trans Women

    Transgender women experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, poor health services, and low pay are less likely to receive necessary HIV prevention support or treatment, according to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study based on responses from more than 1,600 trans women across seven major US cities.

    May 19, 2022
    General
    Gay City News

  • Namibia: New Public Awareness Materials Encourage Women At Risk to Take PrEP

    The US Government funded DREAMS program and the Ministry of Health and Social Services launched new public awareness materials encouraging young women at risk of contracting HIV to take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis medication (PrEP) to stay HIV-free. HIV prevalence among Namibian adolescent girls and young women is about 7 percent, meaning they face a substantial risk of infection.

    May 19, 2022
    PrEP
    All Africa

  • HIV Vaccine Awareness Day 2022

    Wednesday, May 18, is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD) 2022. It’s an exciting time for vaccine research, marked by the speed with which COVID-19 vaccines were developed. At the same time, the seemingly fast advances in the field led many to wonder, Where is the vaccine to protect against HIV? HVAD offers a chance to explore these topics and to thank the researchers, advocates and volunteers involved in HIV vaccine development.

    May 18, 2022
    HIV Vaccine
    POZ

  • First In-Africa Clinical Trial of mRNA HIV Vaccine

    Though not for lack of effort, there remains a significant need for an HIV vaccine. Today, Moderna and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) announced the first in-Africa clinical trial for an HIV vaccine candidate.

    May 18, 2022
    HIV Vaccine
    Contagion Live

  • Are Oral Swabs the Future of TB Testing?

    The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that every year 40 percent of people who fall ill with tuberculosis (TB) globally are not diagnosed. There is thus an urgent need for faster, safe, and more convenient TB tests. The current gold standard of testing still requires people to cough up sputum, something that some people and children, in particular, struggle with. The coughing up of sputum also poses an infection risk to healthcare workers collecting sputum samples.

    May 18, 2022
    General
    Spotlight

  • Philly Lutaaya: The Ugandan Singer Who Led the Fight Against HIV Prejudice

    Ugandan music star, the late Philly Lutaaya, captivated fans with his music that blended reggae and African pop. At the height of his career in 1989, he was diagnosed with HIV. Amid a climate of fear and prejudice, spawned by little knowledge of the new disease, he became the first high profile Ugandan to go public with his diagnosis.

    May 18, 2022
    General
    BBC News

  • NHS England Is Considering Off-Label Use of Descovy PrEP

    In a draft policy update, NHS England is proposing to reimburse the use of tenofovir alafenamide/emtricitabine (TAF/FTC), the combination pill sold as Descovy by its manufacturers Gilead Sciences, for 'second-line' PrEP. This would add an additional PrEP option as currently the only combination pill reimbursable for PrEP in England is tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC).

    May 17, 2022
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Lubricant Helps Prevent HIV Infection, but Access Remains Limited

    The National Department of Health says that lubricant should be freely available alongside condoms at clinics around the country but according to community-led monitoring group Ritshidze, clinics often do not offer lubricant.

    May 17, 2022
    General
    Spotlight

  • FDA Lifts Clinical Hold on Long-Acting Lenacapavir

    On May 16, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted its clinical hold on lenacapavir, Gilead Sciences’ investigational long-acting HIV capsid inhibitor, after the company switched to a different type of glass vial. Lenacapavir continues to show promise as a treatment both for people starting antiretroviral therapy for the first time and for treatment-experienced people with multidrug-resistant virus, as well as for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

    May 17, 2022
    PrEP, Treatment
    POZ

  • A Female Condom Can Take Sexual Pleasure to New Heights

    Think safe sex means boring sex? Think again — especially if you make internal condoms part of your play kit. South Africa has one of the largest public-funded condom distribution programmes in the world — since 2018 the government has aimed to, each year, distribute 850 million male (external) condoms and 40 million internal (female) condoms to public health facilities.

    May 17, 2022
    Male and Female Condoms
    Mail & Guardian

  • HIV/AIDS Vaccine: Why Don’t We Have One After 37 Years, When We Have Several for COVID-19 After a Few Months?

    Smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the Earth following a highly effective, worldwide vaccination campaign. Paralytic poliomyelitis is no longer a problem in the US because of development and use of effective vaccines against the poliovirus. In current times, millions of lives have been saved because of rapid deployment of effective vaccines against COVID-19. And yet, it has been 37 years since HIV was discovered as the cause of AIDS, and there is no vaccine. Here I will describe the difficulties facing development of an effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS.

    May 17, 2022
    HIV Vaccine
    The Conversation

  • Preparing Society for a HIV Vaccine

    At a 2016 workshop in Chennai to understand people’s hope for a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine, a participant said such a vaccine may make society more “morally corrupt”. He believed that a preventive vaccine may encourage more people to engage in unsafe sex with multiple partners. The respondent had HIV and had experienced stigma and discrimination.

    May 16, 2022
    HIV Vaccine
    Nature

  • Kenya: HIV Positive Patients Hopeful After Trials for Injectable Drugs Begin

    More than 18 million people are on life-long HIV treatment worldwide, but an almost equal number do not have access to treatment yet according to the WHO. Many are held back by the fear of stigma. Kenya is trialling injected drugs, which only need to be given once every two months.

    May 16, 2022
    Treatment
    Africanews

  • Life After HIV

    Few people can truly understand Adam Castillejo’s journey to being cured of HIV. Timothy Ray Brown was one of them. “The first time we spoke, he said, ‘Brother, welcome to the family,’” Castillejo recalls. “That was his warm, caring message to me, and it gave me such a sense of acceptance from him.”

    May 16, 2022
    Cure
    POZ

  • Improving Black Women’s Sexual Health Means Rejecting Respectability Politics

    The first time I set up a doctor’s appointment for and by myself was during my freshman year of college. At that point I felt like a child, clumsily playacting at making major decisions, even though all I was doing was receiving a Gardasil vaccine (Human Papillomavirus 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant).

    May 16, 2022
    HPV Vaccines
    The Body

  • A Significant Investment in mRNA Technology Fuels Moderna’s Vaccine Pipeline

    Researchers have been studying mRNA for decades and it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic where the platform found its greatest utility in vaccines. Moderna has been a leading company in research and development in this area. In its simplest terms, the company explains there are a few steps that can be done to address different diseases and viruses and the process can be replicated over and over again. The company explains that mRNA vaccines and therapies start with identifying a protein that is designed to prevent or treat a certain disease.

    May 15, 2022
    HIV Vaccine
    Contagion Live

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