23 MAY 2014, VOLUME 15, ISSUE 21

Media Coverage

• CDC backing for preventive Truvada could multiply Gilead's scripts 50-fold

  What to do when HIV-infection rates stop going down--and condom use continues to fall? If you're US health officials, you recommend that Americans at high risk of infection take a pill: Gilead Sciences' Truvada, an AIDS fighter that's the only drug approved for HIV prevention.

  May 26, 2014

  PrEP

  FiercePharma

• Are we ready for HIV's sexual revolution?

  Pretend it's 1960, and the Food and Drug Administration has just done something startling. It has taken a drug it had previously approved for infertility - brand name Enovid - and approved it for the opposite use: birth control. That pill - soon simply the Pill - triggered the sexual revolution.

  May 23, 2014

  PrEP

  New York Times

• Glaxo announces 5-year price freeze for post-GAVI countries

  GlaxoSmithKline has been a partner of the GAVI Alliance for years, offering some of its vaccines at low cost to help support immunization efforts for children in emerging countries. But now, it's going one step further with a 5-year price freeze on three of its vaccines for countries that graduate from GAVI funding.

  May 22, 2014

  Fierce Vaccines

• Russia: Critics continue to attack "hypocrisy" over HIV/AIDS

  International bodies and local campaign groups have repeatedly criticised Russia for not doing anywhere near enough in terms of providing prevention services or access to medical treatment for HIV/AIDS sufferers. The fourth Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) HIV/AIDS Conference, which finished in Moscow last week, has not put a stop to that criticism.

  May 21, 2014

  IPS News

• Celebrities keen to get circumcised - Sulu

  Society for Family Health male circumcision ambassador Sulupinsio Banda says most Zambian celebrities are keen to get circumcised and champion the cause...."In fact, majority of the celebrities I discuss issues of circumcision with are circumcised.

  May 21, 2014

  Post (Zambia)

• Uganda: After nurse is jailed, family raps activists

  The family of the toddler at the centre of a case that on Monday ended in a three-year jail term for a 64- year-old nurse has criticized AIDS activists for showing no concern for an innocent baby. Buganda Road Chief Magistrate Olive Kazaarwe found Rosemary Namubiru guilty of professional negligence under section 171 of the Penal Code and sentenced her to three years in prison for pricking her index finger and using the same cannula to inject the three-year-old boy, well knowing that she was HIV- positive.

  May 20, 2014

  The Observer

• After air fares and share sales, UN seeks aid money from oil

  The United Nations is talking to oil-producing African countries about levying 10 cents on every barrel produced to provide funds to help the poorest nations improve public health, a senior UN official said on Tuesday. The proposed funding mechanism would follow two other schemes to raise money for development in unconventional ways - a levy on airline tickets in more than 90 countries and a tax planned by 11 European nations on share transactions.

  May 20, 2014

  Reuters

• Activists sound alarm on tiered drug prices

  Global-health campaigners and researchers are protesting against a proposal that they say would allow drug companies to raise prices for needed medicines in many developing countries. On 13 May, a coalition of 220 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) condemned a proposal from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that promotes 'tiered pricing', in which drug companies offer the same medicines at vastly different prices in different countries.

  May 20, 2014

  Nature

• Researchers slam transparency 'U-Turn' at EU medicines agency

  Researchers are worried that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is backpedaling on its pledge to open clinical trials data to public scrutiny. Draft documents detailing how the agency plans to make such data available contains small print that may severely limit access and that constitutes a turnaround from earlier promises for openness, academics say....

  May 19, 2014

  Science

• In US, gay men clash over HIV prevention pill

  A single daily pill may help prevent HIV. And in America, gay men who have lost countless loved ones to AIDS can't stop fighting about it. Much of the debate has played out on the Internet and social media as tempers flare over promiscuity, erratic condom use and the potential to either eliminate or worsen the stubborn HIV/AIDS epidemic.

  May 17, 2014

  PrEP

  Times of India

• AIDS among children, teenagers a "Hidden Epidemic"

  ....Developing new pediatric formulations is a priority in the global response to pediatric HIV, said Global AIDS Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx...."We're still astounded that in countries where we have over 90 percent prevention of mother-to-child-transmission coverage, there's a big gap for treatment among children," Birx said.

  May 15, 2014

  Science Speaks

• New guidelines reinforce value of anti-HIV pills for prevention

  Great fanfare has accompanied the findings from several big studies over the past few years that an anti-HIV pill a day can keep the virus away. Interim guidelines from the US Centers for Disease and Prevention have backed the approach, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), for people at high risk of becoming infected, and the US Food and Drug Administration also approved the strategy in 2012.

  May 15, 2014

  PrEP

  Science

• Australia shakes up science budget

  The new budget by Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his government, may be good for biomedical sciences but other sciences will lose out. The first budget announced by Australia's conservative coalition government has polarized scientists

  May 14, 2014

  Nature

• Peer pressure can be a lifesaver

  ...When a problem is inextricably linked to behavior change, it's essential to make the solution both convenient to practice, and something that can be socially reinforced. In Liberia, for example, 60 percent of women are pregnant by age 19. How do you effectively teach young people about protected sex and contraceptives so that it changes their actions?

  May 14, 2014

  New York Times

Published Research

• Barriers and facilitators to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) eligibility screening and ongoing HIV testing among target populations in Bondo and Rarieda, Kenya: results of a consultation with community stakeholders

  We conducted a consultation with district-level community stakeholders experienced in HIV-prevention interventions with at-risk populations in Bondo and Rarieda, Kenya to generate locally grounded approaches to the future rollout of oral PrEP to four populations: fishermen, widows, female sex workers, and serodiscordant couples.

  May 26, 2014

  PrEP

  BMC Health Services Research

• Women's beliefs about male circumcision, HIV prevention, and sexual behaviors in Kisumu, Kenya

  Women's beliefs about MC and sexual behaviour will likely influence the scale-up and uptake of medical MC. We conducted qualitative interviews with 30 sexually active women in Kisumu, Kenya. Women discussed MC related to perceived health benefits, condom use, sexual behaviour, knowledge of susceptibility to HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), circumcision preference, and influence on circumcision uptake.

  May 22, 2014

  Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision

  PLoS ONE

• Health-related quality of life dynamics of HIV-positive South African women up to ART initiation: evidence from the CAPRISA 002 Acute Infection Cohort Study

  From 2004, 160 women were enrolled into the CAPRISA 002 Acute Infection study at two sites in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and underwent 3-6 monthly health-related quality of life (HRQoL) assessments using the functional assessment of HIV infection (FAHI) instrument.

  May 22, 2014

  HIV Vaccine, Microbicides

  AIDS and Behavior

• Measures of condom and safe sex social norms and stigma towards HIV/AIDS among Beijing MSM

  A survey of MSM, based on respondent-driven sampling, was conducted in Beijing. Existing measures of condom social norms, attitudes towards safer sex and HIV/AIDS stigma were piloted. As expected higher levels of condom social norms and positive attitudes towards safer sex were associated with condom use.

  May 22, 2014

  AIDS and Behavior

• Stigma against people with HIV/AIDS in rural Ethiopia, 2005 to 2011: signs and predictors of improvement

  ...Rural data from the 2005 and 2011 Demographic and Health Surveys were analyzed. HIV testing rates among males increased dramatically from 2005 to 2011 (8-35 %). Among females, testing rates dropped 10 % during the same period. HIV knowledge was associated with stigma, shown by a negative correlation in both data waves, but groups with higher knowledge tended to have lower stigma.

  May 22, 2014

  AIDS and Behavior

• Tackling stigma: fundamental to an AIDS-free future

  The achievement of an AIDS-free future will surely be a priority discussion topic at the upcoming International AIDS Society conference in Melbourne, Australia....To more effectively reach key populations with the prevention basics, explicit reduction in HIV stigma should be made a priority.

  May 22, 2014

  The Lancet Global Health

• Mental health of HIV-seropositive women during pregnancy and postpartum period: a comprehensive literature review

  ....This review synthesizes evidence from 53 peer-reviewed publications examining mental health-related variables in pregnant and postpartum HIV+ women. The presentation of results is organized by the level of socioeconomic resources in the countries where studies were conducted (i.e., high-, middle-, and low-income countries).

  May 22, 2014

  AIDS and Behavior

• More than two-thirds of healthy Americans are infected with human papilloma viruses

  In what is believed to be the largest and most detailed genetic analysis of its kind, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere have concluded that 69 percent of healthy American adults are infected with one or more of 109 strains of human papillomavirus (HPV).

  May 20, 2014

  Science Daily

• Offline: The case against global health

  Sometimes it is useful to argue deliberately and aggressively against an idea you passionately believe in. Within that argument, there may be areas of truth you would ordinarily dismiss, but which you know must be addressed directly. I am grateful to the Consortium of Universities for Global Health for commissioning the case against global health to be put in a debate last week at its annual conference in Washington, DC.

  May 17, 2014

  The Lancet

• Contagiousness under antiretroviral therapy and stigmatization toward people with HIV

  ....To test the assumption that reductions in contagiousness can lead to a decrease in stigmatizing reactions, we conducted an experimental online study. A sample of 752 participants (50.9% female) read a short vignette depicting an HIV-positive individual with either a high or a low viral load and were either given or not given information about the association between viral load and contagiousness.

  April 30, 2014

  AIDS Care

• My intention was a child but I was very afraid: fertility intentions and HIV risk perceptions among HIV-serodiscordant couples experiencing pregnancy in Kenya

  We sought to understand fertility intentions and HIV risk considerations among Kenyan HIV-serodiscordant couples who became pregnant during a prospective study. We conducted individual in-depth interviews (n = 36) and focus group discussions (n = 4) and performed qualitative data analysis and interpretation using an inductive approach.

  April 29, 2014

  AIDS Care

• High burden of STIs among HIV-infected adults prior to initiation of ART in South Africa: a retrospective cohort study

  We linked the clinic records of 1465 patients currently on ART to the electronic database which records all visits to city clinics. We accumulated 4214 person-years of follow-up, divided nearly equally between the pre-ART and on-ART periods.

  April 16, 2014

  Sex Transm Infect.

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