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20 October 2017 VOLUME 18 ISSUE 42

Media Coverage

  • HRSA awards $2.36 billion in grants to help Americans access HIV/AIDS care and medications

    The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced [yesterday] approximately $2.36 billion in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grants awarded to cities, counties, states, and local community-based organizations in fiscal year (FY) 2017. This funding supports a comprehensive system of HIV primary medical care, medication, and essential support services to more than half a million people living with HIV in the United States.

    October 18, 2017
    General
    HIV.gov

  • HIV Diagnoses in the UK Fell in Gay Men Last Year for the First Time Since the Mid-1990s, Public Health England Confirms

    2016 HIV surveillance figures in England show a historic drop in new infections among gay men. since antiretroviral therapy became available twenty years ago. Aidsmap reports on the findings by Public Health England and explores the role of combination prevention including testing, PrEP and treatment.

    October 18, 2017
    Combination Prevention
    aidsmap

  • HIV infection, even with antiretroviral therapy, appears to damage a growing child's brain

    One of the largest and best-documented trials of children receiving early antiretroviral therapy -- the CHER clinical trial in South Africa -- finds ongoing white matter damage in HIV-positive children at the age of 7 years. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of brain development in HIV-infected and exposed children, as well as the impact of long-term antiretroviral treatment.

    October 17, 2017
    Treatment
    Science Daily

  • Better use of electronic health records might help close HIV testing gap in the US

    New research presented at IDWeek 2017 in San Diego, California, explores how we can use computer algorithms to help ensure that undiagnosed people with HIV are tested, thus increasing the likelihood of them moving forward on the HIV care cascade. Our correspondent Sony Salzman spoke with study author Jason Zucker, M.D., a postdoctoral clinical fellow at Columbia University Medical Center, about the findings.

    October 17, 2017
    General
    BodyPRO

  • 48th Union World Conference: Good participatory practice guidelines come to TB vaccine development

    Describing the value of working with funders, sponsors, industry partners, governments and community members during all stages of tuberculosis vaccine research and development, the Good Participatory Practice Guidelines for TB Vaccine Research released the first day of this conference is the latest step in a movement to ensure those most affected by science inform its discoveries.

    October 17, 2017
    General
    Science Speaks

  • Night: perfect cover for AIDS testing in Zimbabwe

    Denigrated by friends and lampooned at work, Jimson Hove...was racked with worry and consumed by guilt - what would people would think if they saw him checking out his HIV status at a downtown clinic....So when Zimbabwe launched a night testing service in August, Hove steeled for the worst and walked nervously into the medical tent pitched at the heart of...Harare. About 10 minutes later, his world had changed.

    October 16, 2017
    General
    Thomson Reuters

  • Activists in Africa are concerned with the message Trump is sending about the LGBT community

    When Trump was on the campaign trail, he claimed he would be the best President for the LGBT community. We didn't hold our breath, even though many of us had conservative friends and family tell us otherwise. Sadly, his track record has proven him wrong.

    October 16, 2017
    General
    Instinct

  • 48th Union World Conference: Sex workers and drug users with HIV in rural Kenya have high death rates from tuberculosis

    Despite a decrease in the numbers of TB cases reported in Kilifi, a rural county in Kenya along the Indian Ocean, deaths from tuberculosis were on the rise....According to Kenyan Researcher Osman Abdullahi, key populations in Kenya that include men who have sex with men as well as commercial sex workers and people who inject drugs are thought to represent at least 44 percent of all new HIV infections in the country, and where HIV is found in Kenya, tuberculosis is not far behind.

    October 16, 2017
    General
    Science Speaks

  • STI warning as clinics close in London and self-testing is delayed

    Six long-established sexual health clinics around London have shut in recent months as part of a [controversial] planned switch from face-to-face consultations to online services....Experts are warning that the clinic closures and unavailability of kits could lead to “an explosive increase” in STI rates in London, already the highest in England.

    October 15, 2017
    General
    Guardian

  • New York HIV nonprofits expand services to other health issues

    Organizations working with AIDS and HIV patients are a well-established presence in New York City. But as infection rates have dropped and improved medicines have enabled people with the virus to live longer, some groups are adapting their service models and expanding their reach, taking on new health issues from heart disease to heroin addiction.

    October 15, 2017
    General
    Wall Street Journal

  • HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects Latinos, Hispanics, CDC says

    Hispanics or Latinos living in the United States are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, accounting for 18% of the overall population and 24% of all new HIV diagnoses, according to the CDC. To coincide with National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day, observed each year on Oct. 15, the CDC published new data on the progress toward the national goals for Hispanic or Latino patients.

    October 15, 2017
    General
    Healio

  • PrEP activists warn new NHS trial will fail if black gay men don't take part

    The new Impact study is now live, after a delayed start due to computer problems. The three-year trial will see 10,000 people using the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis drug Truvada. Marc Thompson, [who] runs Prepster, the PrEP advocacy group,...tells GSN, ‘If enough black men don’t take part, the trial won’t have been as successful as we hoped. It will create a health inequality.’ The experts are estimating the overwhelming majority of the patients in the NHS trial will be white gay men.

    October 13, 2017
    PrEP
    Gay Star News

  • World Politics Review examines new PEPFAR strategy, Trump administration's commitment to ending AIDS

    [W]hile PEPFAR may be off the chopping block, the Trump administration’s new strategy seems to perpetuate trends that have activists worried about the long-term fight against HIV/AIDS. … First, for all its talk of U.S. commitment to PEPFAR, the administration seems prepared to follow through on a proposal to cut the program’s budget … Second, the strategy involves a new focus on 13 ‘high-burden’ African countries, with an eye toward achieving epidemic control by 2020. Yet it is unclear what this focus means for other countries receiving PEPFAR support…."

    October 13, 2017
    General
    KFF News

  • Report highlights challenges of HIV care in rural deep South

    In Louisiana, which has the highest rate of new HIV infections of any U.S. state, young people in rural parishes are more likely to test positive for HIV than those living in the state’s biggest two cities, and rural residents of all ages are more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS....Fewer HIV/AIDS services and a compromised continuum of care mean patients are less likely to achieve viral suppression than those living in New Orleans or Baton Rouge, explained Monica Johnson, director and founder of the nonprofit group HEROES.

    October 12, 2017
    General
    Healio

  • IDWeek 2017: Long-acting monoclonal antibody effective against multidrug-resistant HIV

    Ibalizumab, a long-acting monoclonal antibody that prevents HIV from entering cells, maintained viral suppression for a year in people with highly resistant HIV and limited treatment options, according to a presentation at the IDWeek 2017 conference last week in San Diego (Emu et al, abstract 1686).

    October 12, 2017
    Antibody Related Research
    HIV and Hepatitis

  • Unpacking Michael Weinstein's latest PrEP denialism

    After something of a lull, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) president Michael Weinstein...has returned to the fore, with an editorial in the prestigious journal AIDS in which he and a pair of AHF scientists dismiss Truvada as a mere “boutique intervention” against HIV, one that wreaks collateral damage on society and offers limited benefit in exchange. The principle target of the AHF coauthors is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    October 10, 2017
    PrEP
    POZ

  • Free Your (and Carl's) Mind: An Open Letter to Anthony Fauci About HIV Prevention Research Priorities

    TheBodyPRO.com published this open letter from Jim Pickett of the International Rectal Microbicide Advocates and AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Pickett makes the case for continued investment in microbicide research and takes on the Director of the Division of AIDS at the US National Institutes of Health, Carl Dieffenbach. Dr. Dieffenbach has signaled NIH funding for microbicide research may not continue at current levels.

    October 10, 2017
    Microbicides, PrEP
    BodyPRO

  • This week in HIV research: how to cut U.S. HIV incidence by 250,000 in 20 years

    This week, we learn about new data exploring the critical intersection between HIV treatment access and reduced HIV incidence in the U.S. We also ponder the value of replacing placebos with pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in clinical trials on HIV prevention; the wisdom of prescribing PrEP to women with bacterial vaginosis; and the cost-effectiveness of routine HIV screening in primary care settings.

    October 6, 2017
    General, PrEP
    BodyPRO

  • Save the implant! Contraception experts call for urgent action

    Writing about the experience of 152 women from clinics in Johannesburg and North West‚ Wits academics and others say three-quarters rated the [Depo-Provera contraceptive] implant “good” or “very good”‚ but most of the 61 women who had the device removed within a year were unable to tolerate the side effects....The researchers say the implant’s initial popularity has been affected by gossip about the side effects.

    October 5, 2017
    General
    Sowetan Live

  • Prevalence of Drug-Drug Interactions with Hormonal Contraceptives and Antiretrovirals in Women Living with HIV

    Three quarters of women taking antiretroviral treatment (ART) and using hormonal contraception had a potential drug-drug interaction in a large Chicago trial, involving 317 women. The most frequent interacting hormonal contraceptives were the progestin intrauterine device (69%) and the combination oral tablet (23%), distantly followed by the progestin implant (4%), the vaginal ring (3%), and the estrogen patch (1.4%). The researchers categorized these as "potential interactions" and none as "do not coadminister."

    October 4, 2017
    Hormonal Contraceptives and HIV, Treatment
    ID Week 2017/IDSA

  • Protesters stage London demo against plans for patient ID checks

    People from overseas are already liable for the cost of treatment, but new rules will require hospitals, community interest companies and charities receiving NHS funds to identify such patients before treatment in order to bill them....The government says the changes lower the burden from health tourism, blamed for costing NHS millions every year. Critics fear the new checks will discourage undocumented migrants from accessing vital care, which could pose a risk to the wider public.

    September 30, 2017
    General
    Guardian

  • CDC: “Effectively no risk” of sexual HIV transmission if undetectable

    In recognition of the 2017 National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day...on September 27, the CDC released a letter that highlighted the latest HIV statistics related to gay and bisexual men....The NGMHAAD letter also included CDC’s strongest endorsement to date of the messaging behind the “Undetectable Equals Untransmittable” (U=U) campaign, launched by the Prevention Access Campaign in 2016.

    September 28, 2017
    Treatment
    POZ

  • New single-day pill for HIV treatment promises more bang for less buck

    For about $75, the governments in South Africa and Kenya will soon be able to treat an HIV-infected person for 1 year with a pill taken once a day that contains a “best-in-class” combination of three antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The backbone of the new pill is dolutegravir, a remarkably powerful and safe ARV that inhibits HIV’s integrase enzyme and has been too expensive for most poor and middle-income countries to afford.

    September 21, 2017
    Treatment
    Science

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