Email Updates

You are here

Home

23 NOVEMBER 2022 VOLUME 24 ISSUE 47

Media Coverage

  • Push To Use Antibiotics To Prevent Sexually Transmitted Infections Raises Concerns

    A health department in the United States has become one of the first to recommend that people who are at high risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) take a preventive dose of antibiotics after unprotected sex. Clinical trials have shown the strategy can reduce infections such as chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhoea. But some researchers worry it will contribute to antibiotic resistance.

    November 23, 2022
    General
    Nature

  • Interrogating the Promise of Long-Acting HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis

    Oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a well-established product that provides a safe and highly effective way for individuals to protect themselves against HIV infection. However, hopes of a significant reduction in HIV incidence have been disappointing because of low uptake, adherence challenges to a daily pill regimen, and consistently high discontinuation rates within 6 months of initiation.

    November 23, 2022
    PrEP
    Trends in Molecular Science

  • Men Are Using Condoms Less, Even as Syphilis and Other STDs Surge

    The basket of free ultrathin and studded condoms stayed full to the brim — a recurrent reality that no longer surprised the DC health workers offering HIV testing this month at a downtown plaza. Public health authorities are confronting a rise in sexually transmitted infections in a world where condom use has steadily declined — and, with it, one of the most effective ways of curbing the spread of disease.

    November 23, 2022
    General
    Washington Post

  • Pilot Projects Set To Inform Rollout of HIV Prevention Shot

    South Africa is expected to begin piloting the HIV prevention injection early next year as one of several projects that experts hope will reveal the answers to some of the biggest questions about the future of the shot – who will deliver the injection, where, and how to sell people on the idea that just six shots a year could protect them from HIV.

    November 22, 2022
    PrEP
    Spotlight

  • WHO To Rename Monkeypox as ‘MPOX’

    The World Health Organization is planning to rename monkeypox, designating it as “MPOX” in an effort to destigmatize the virus that gained a foothold in the US earlier this year, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. The decision, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, follows an initial agreement the WHO made over the summer to consider suggestions for monkeypox’s new name.

    November 22, 2022
    General
    POLITICO

  • Remembering Dawn Smith, Who Helped Prove PrEP’s Efficacy and Guided Its Use

    PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) has become such a central part of HIV prevention that it can be hard to remember that in the decade before its 2012 approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, “PrEP was a code word for unethical research.” So says Mitchell Warren, longtime head of the HIV prevention advocacy group AVAC, recalling how, in the 2000s, early trials to determine PrEP’s efficacy fell apart in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Thailand amid accusations from activists that researchers were not treating trial subjects ethically—for instance, by not necessarily guaranteeing lifetime HIV tre

    November 22, 2022
    PrEP
    TheBody

  • ‘It’s Always Fear-Based’: Why Sexual Health Projects Should Switch the Focus To Pleasure

    In the village in Kenya where Swiry Nyar Kano (not her real name) grew up, sex and diversity weren’t talked about much. The topics didn’t come up in conversation with her parents, and at school she was taught about human anatomy and “sexual immorality”, and told that homosexuality was a sin. “I grew up in society where sex was about having babies and that was about it,” says the social media influencer. “Sexuality was never mentioned. Nobody ever talked about it so I started seeking answers for myself.”

    November 22, 2022
    General
    The Guardian

  • HIV Cure Study Volunteering: I’ve Gone Back for More

    Hi folks! You may remember that, back in April, I wrote about participating as someone with HIV in a study aimed at finding a cure for the virus. In that report, I wrote: “There’s a special kind of HIV cure research going on at the Ragon Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scientists there are collecting blood samples from folks who’ve been on HIV treatment for 15 years or longer..."

    November 22, 2022
    Cure
    TheBody

  • HIV-Positive Grandmother Receives Historic Heart Transplant

    A Westchester grandmother has a second chance at life. She is HIV-positive and received the first ever HIV-positive to HIV-positive heart transplant. She met her donor's family face-to-face for the first time Tuesday. CBS2's Jennifer Bisram has the heartwarming union.

    November 22, 2022
    General
    CBS News

  • Molo Residents Embrace HIV Self-Test Kit in Campaign to Cut New Infections

    It is 10am and Jane Wanjiku rummages through her bag in search of something that is visibly vital in her line of work. She pulls out a Bible, a bottle of mineral water and self-testing kits, which she opens with enthusiasm. Excitement lights up her face. She notes something in her pocket diary. Then she sighs and says she has been on demand lately.

    November 22, 2022
    General
    The Star

  • Opt-out HIV Testing in Emergency Rooms Can Help Identify Undiagnosed Cases

    Results of a new study indicate that opt-out HIV testing, in particular "notional consent testing" where a patient is not asked or counseled before conducting the test, is an effective tool for identifying undiagnosed HIV cases in populations with an HIV positivity rate greater than 0.2 percent. On implementation of opt-out testing of patients aged 18-59 admitted to the emergency room at St. George's University Hospital in London, the proportion of tests performed increased from 57.9 percent to 69 percent.

    November 22, 2022
    General
    Medscape

  • Mobile Phone Intervention May Help Improve HIV Treatment Adherence

    An intervention using weekly phone reminders may be an effective method to increase adherence to antiretroviral therapy and reduce morbidity among patients with HIV, according to research presented at ID Week 2022. “Regardless of the underlying causes, it’s been shown that maintenance of adequate ART adherence decreases progression of HIV to AIDS,” Bailee Cummings, a medical student at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine, said during the presentation.

    November 22, 2022
    General
    Medscape

  • How Drought Has Affected Circumcision of Boys in Laikipia

    For many Kenyan communities, circumcision, a right of passage for boys into adulthood, is a sacred tradition. Those who fail to undergo the rite of passage are always considered outcasts. In Laikipia County, things have changed for the worse in the last several years, with many boys now skipping this vital part of life.

    November 21, 2022
    Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision
    The Standard

  • Black Women Make Up Majority of New HIV Cases Among Women. But They Aren’t Getting Care.

    When Phyllis Malone was first diagnosed with HIV in 1996, she was ashamed. Incarcerated at the height of the epidemic, Malone was sure she would die. She’d put on her nightgown, lie down in her cell, and cross her arms, as if "lying in a casket." She thought she wouldn’t wake up the next day. The stigma associated with the virus kept Malone, a mother of four, from getting help from doctors or support groups.

    November 21, 2022
    General
    USA Today

  • HIV: Treating 'Symptom Clusters' Could Help Improve QOL

    People living with HIV experience many symptoms that can be grouped into "clusters" to help guide therapy and ideally treat more than one symptom at a time in an effort to improve quality of life, according to a study presented here at the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC) 2022 Annual Meeting. Evidence suggests there are four main symptom clusters: pain, body psychological, gastrointestinal, and body image. Interestingly, these symptoms were more common among people living with HIV who are older than 45 years vs those who are younger, with one exception.

    November 21, 2022
    General
    Medscape

  • Many People With Hepatitis C Could Benefit From HIV PrEP

    Although a third of people with hepatitis C surveyed in Washington, DC, and Baltimore were potentially eligible for HIV prevention pills or long-acting injections, most had not heard of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and very few were using it, according to research published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) share some of the same transmission routes, such as shared drug injection equipment and condomless sex, suggesting that many people living with HCV could benefit from HIV PrEP.

    November 21, 2022
    General
    POZ Magazine

  • Face to Face: Prof Helen Rees on SAHPRA, Women’s Rights, and Her Appetite for Justice

    As a rebellious teenager growing up in the British town of Harpenden, Helen Rees would sneak out to attend anti-apartheid talks. “That was the stop-the-Boks tour,” she recalls. “[British politician] Peter Hain was an activist trying to stop the Springboks from touring the United Kingdom. In those days, the isolation of sport in response to apartheid was starting to really gain traction.”

    November 21, 2022
    General
    Spotlight

  • Rampant Increase of HIV in Mbinga a Major Worry

    The rate of HIV infection in Mbinga district is sharply increasing, especially in the coal mining areas, as the mining activities increased the interaction between people from different parts of the country and abroad. In 2018, when the coal mining had not started, the number of people who tested positive for HIV in the district was 2,234 but has since increased to 8,133 in 2022, of which women account for 59.2 percent, according to official statistics from the district.

    November 20, 2022
    General
    The Citizen

  • We Need to Bring Sexual Health Care to Places Where People Have Sex

    On Saturday, June 29, 2019, a group of over 200 queer and trans folks were gathered in New York City, celebrating the city’s big World Pride weekend. They had all come to a party called NYC Inferno known for sexual activity. At around midnight, they were gathered in the front of the venue, rapt as an artist led them in an interactive performance. Within moments, everyone was singing the refrain: “We’ve got to keep each other alive, because no one else is gonna do it.”

    November 19, 2022
    General
    Time

Published Research

Announcements