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23 SEPTEMBER 2022 VOLUME 24 ISSUE 38

Media Coverage

  • Merck Restarts Islatravir HIV Treatment Studies, but Abandons Monthly PrEP

    Merck plans to start new clinical trials of HIV treatment using a lower dose of its experimental antiretroviral islatravir, which has been on hold since late last year due to safety concerns, the company announced this week. However, there was no announcement about the development of implants or injections, and studies of islatravir for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) will be discontinued.

    September 23, 2022
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • UK Accused of Abandoning Global South As It Fails To Boost Spending on Key Fund

    David Lammy, the UK’s shadow foreign secretary, has accused the British government of undermining support in the global south for the alliance on Ukraine after it failed to commit to boosting its spending on a fund established to fight three of the world’s deadliest diseases: malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

    September 22, 2022
    General
    The Guardian

  • Africa: Gates Foundation Announces US $1.27 Billion to Fight HIV, TB, Malaria, Others

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- alongside governments, philanthropies, the private sector, NGOs, and global and community leaders -- has announced commitments totalling $1.27 billion to improve and save millions of lives. According to a statement from the organisation, the commitments were announced during the United Nations General Assembly. It said the funding will address overlapping global crises that have reversed the progress already made toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals).

    September 22, 2022
    General
    allAfrica

  • Global Fund raises $14.25 billion to fight Malaria, HIV and TB

    The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has announced it has raised $14.25 billion at a donor conference on Wednesday. The outbreak of COVID-19 had set back the fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in the past couple of years. The amount raised at Wednesday’s conference was the highest amount ever pledged for a multilateral health organisation.

    September 22, 2022
    General
    Africa Feeds

  • Officials Hopeful That Monkeypox Can Be Eliminated in the US

    With monkeypox cases on the decline nationally, federal health officials expressed optimism on Thursday that the virus could be eliminated in the United States, though they cautioned that unless it was wiped out globally, Americans would remain at risk. “Our goal is to eradicate; that’s what we’re working toward,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the deputy coordinator of the White House monkeypox response team, said during a visit to a monkeypox vaccination clinic in Washington. He added, “The prediction is, we’re going to get very close.”

    September 22, 2022
    General
    The New York Times

  • To Meet Global HIV Prevention Goals, Expand The PEPFAR-FDA Tentative Approval Pathway

    Despite significant gains over the past decade, the goal to end the HIV epidemic by 2030 is in serious jeopardy. Worldwide HIV prevention efforts have failed to achieve global targets in reducing new HIV infections. This failure has been driven in part by a lack of HIV prevention options that reflect the needs and lifestyles of individuals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Emerging HIV prevention tools have the potential to remedy this inequity but accelerating access to them will require a global effort.

    September 21, 2022
    PrEP
    Health Affairs

  • Success in Containing and Treating HIV Among People Injecting Drugs in the UK Has Stalled in Recent Years

    Despite the United Kingdom’s successful containment of HIV infection among people injecting drugs, progress towards lowering HIV prevalence and improving HIV care and treatment uptake within this population has stalled in the past ten years. A recent article by researchers from the UK Health Security Agency published in the October issue of HIV Medicine tracks HIV prevalence, HIV diagnoses, risk and protective behaviours and quality of HIV care using data collected between 1981-2019 on adults who acquired HIV through injection drug use in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

    September 21, 2022
    General
    aidsmap

  • Out for Delivery: Nation’s Largest-Ever HIV Self-Testing Program

    Testing yourself for HIV—for free, in the privacy of your own home—is about to get a lot easier and more common, thanks to the largest HIV self-testing program in US history. The Together TakeMeHome program aims to deliver 1 million rapid HIV tests across the country starting early next year.

    September 21, 2022
    General
    POZ Magazine

  • Injectable form of PrEP Could be Game Changer for HIV Prevention

    Recently, ViiV Healthcare presented research at the 2022 International AIDS Conference that shed light on the efficacy of cabotegravir long-acting (LA) for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). This is the first, and currently, only long-acting injectable form of PrEP, a medication that when adhered to, can effectively prevent the contraction of HIV.

    September 21, 2022
    PrEP
    Healthline

  • World Leaders Pledge Billions To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria on UN Sidelines

    The Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria on Wednesday reached $14.25 billion pledged as world leaders seek to fight the killer diseases after progress was knocked off course by the COVID-19 pandemic. US President Joe Biden, who hosted the conference in New York on the sidelines of the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, said the funding is crucial to combating the diseases.

    September 21, 2022
    General
    Reuters

  • Barriers to HIV Prevention Drug in NB ‘Mind-Boggling’

    Every year, Rob Swan makes the two-hour trip from Harvey Station to Moncton's infectious disease clinic. He travels to the clinic to be prescribed pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP. The medication prevents someone who is HIV-negative from contracting HIV if they come into contact with the virus through sex or intravenous drug use.

    September 20, 2022
    General
    CBC

  • Nigeria Launches Campaign To Curb HIV Spread Among Young Persons

    The Nigerian government on Monday launched the Youthful Alive and Healthy (YAaH Naija) campaign, an innovative intervention that aims to scale up the uptake of high-impact HIV prevention tools. The Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Gambo Aliyu, said the initiative aims to deliver high-impact prevention interventions to vulnerable groups. He added that the initiative will combine digital and social networks.

    September 20, 2022
    General
    Premium Times

  • Merck Finally Gets FDA Nod To Relaunch HIV Trials, but Drops Preventive Therapy Plans

    A path forward for Merck & Co.’s struggling HIV strategy has opened up, with the FDA releasing a nine-month clinical hold on trials of the Big Pharma’s drug islatravir as long as low doses are used. However, the company has also decided to ditch its plans to explore the drug as a preventive treatment.

    September 20, 2022
    PrEP
    Fierce Pharma

  • As We Fight Monkeypox, We Must Remember the Somber Lessons of HIV

    The racial disparities in the current monkeypox outbreak recall the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Unless health leaders heed the lessons of the past and act compassionately to reach vulnerable populations, these disparities could worsen. While anyone can get monkeypox, Black and Latino men who have sex with men make up more than two-thirds of cases nationwide. However, of the 352,000 vaccines administered so far, a largely disproportionate share has gone to white men.

    September 19, 2022
    General
    WBUR

  • SF HIV Cases Creep Up, Maybe Due to Changes in Testing

    The number of new HIV diagnoses in San Francisco rose in 2021 for the first time in nearly a decade, although this could be due to changes in testing in the wake of COVID-19, according to the latest HIV Epidemiology Annual Report from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH). And for the first time ever, gay and bisexual men who don’t inject drugs accounted for less than half of new cases. HIV care indicators have generally improved or remained stable, but disparities persist, especially for people experiencing homelessness.

    September 19, 2022
    General
    POZ Magazine

  • Opinion: Global Fund Replenishment Must Include Gender-Focused Targets

    In New York, on Sept. 21, the US government is set to host the seventh replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS/HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The event is an important milestone in global health with significant impact for millions of people worldwide that are dependent on this funding.

    September 19, 2022
    General
    Devex

  • Polio Making a Comeback in the US Owing to Declining Vaccination Rates

    As a long-term infectious diseases doctor, I am dismayed at the return of vaccine-preventable diseases in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first case of paralytic polio in the United States since 2013 was reported from Rockland County, New York, on July 21, 2022, in an unvaccinated man who had recently traveled to Europe. The rate of polio vaccination in Rockland County is only 60 percent as of August 1, 2022, with some counties in New York reporting polio vaccination rates as low as 37 percent among 2-year-old children.

    September 19, 2022
    General
    Medscape

  • The Global Fight Against HIV Calls for a Reinforced Global Fund

    The wailing is what I remember most. Several times every hour, anguished cries would echo over the open-air corridors of the central hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, leading us to pause our clinical rounds as we mourned the loss of yet another young life to HIV. Providing clinical care without access to HIV medicines in 1999 was heart-wrenching and left me and my Malawian colleagues deeply moved. Since then, I have experienced many highs and lows in medical care and public health, but never have I witnessed a set of inequities so troubling or in need of change.

    September 18, 2022
    General
    The Hill

  • As NWT Mulls Health Coverage Changes, Petition Calls for Preventative HIV Drug To Be Free

    A Yellowknife resident is calling on the Northwest Territories government to offer an HIV preventative drug at no cost to residents without health insurance. William Gagnon said HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a daily pill taken by those at high risk of contracting HIV, isn't covered by the NWT government for those without health insurance. Meaning residents in need would have to pay out of pocket.

    September 17, 2022
    PrEP
    CBC

  • National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day 2022

    Sunday, September 18, marks National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day 2022 (searchable on social media as #HIVandAging or #NHAAD). Launched in 2008 by The AIDS Institute, the day shines a light on the growing number of people aging with HIV as well as those diagnosed with the virus later in life.

    September 16, 2022
    General
    POZ Magazine

  • Trial Launching To Study Tecovirimat As Monkeypox Treatment

    The AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), the world’s largest HIV research organization, announced this week they will be launching a trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of tecovirimat to treat the monkeypox virus. Tecovirimat, developed by SIGA Technologies, Inc., was previously approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of smallpox. It is not formally known whether tecovirimat is an efficacious treatment for monkeypox.

    September 16, 2022
    General
    Contagion Live

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