26 August 2017 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 34

Researchers at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy have developed a technique that estimates an HIV-negative patient's adherence to drugs prescribed to prevent HIV transmission during sex. The test measures traces of antiretroviral drugs in a spot of dried blood to determine how much pre-exposure prophylactic, or PrEP, medicine a patient has used.

WikiLeaks was founded as a giant digital library where leaked documents could be posted in efforts to fight corruption, war and spying. But an increasing number of ordinary citizens are finding that they are collateral damage, as data dumps on WikiLeaks reveal sexual assault victims and people living with HIV and hepatitis and divulge myriad other personal details, The Associated Press reports.

A study from Emory AIDS researchers shows how the expected disease severity when someone is newly infected by HIV reflects a balance between the virus' invisibility to the host's immune system and its ability to reproduce.

Until as recently as 10 years ago, much of what we know about the punani, or slang for vagina, was based on old observations made from a small number of cadaver dissections. But this is changing.

The New York City Department of Health, led by assistant commissioner of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Dr Demetre Daskalakis, has signed a groundbreaking consensus declaring that the risk of HIV transmission could be removed by faithfully following antiretroviral treatments. Dr. Daskalakis is the first major public health official in the United States signing the consensus, also signed by his counterparts in Denmark, Australia and Switzerland.

The good news is that, as researchers uncover the complexity of those communities, they are also finding ways to strengthen them, crafting new tools that not only could make women less susceptible to HIV but also improve their health overall. And it highlights the vagina as a powerful HIV prevention tool in itself, said Alison Roxby, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies how the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera impacts HIV acquisition.

The standard approach to first-line HIV therapy is to combine two NRTIs with a drug from another drug class. ViiV wants to see if it is possible to reduce drug exposure and improve adherence to therapy, while maintaining the same level of efficacy, with a two-drug regimen. Two phase III studies - GEMINI-1 and GEMINI-2 - will enrol approximately 1,400 men and women living with HIV...in Europe, Central and South America, North America, South Africa and Asia Pacific.

FSW at least 18 years of age (n=2335) were recruited through three rounds of respondent-driven sampling between 2006 and 2010. FSW who experienced client violence and women who reported husband violence were more likely to report accepting more money for unprotected sex trades, less likely to report consistent condom use with clients, and more likely to report STI symptoms.

Herein we aimed to determine the anti-HIV and anti-herpes simplex virus 2 (anti-HSV-2) activity of PC-1005 in human cervical explants after in vitro exposure to the gel and to CVLs from participants in the phase 1 trial. Conclusion: The anti-HIV and anti-HSV-2 activity of PC-1005 gel in vitro and CVLs in human ectocervical explants supports the further development of PC-1005 gel as a broad-spectrum on-demand microbicide.

19,391 patients were included. At multivariable analysis, the following factors were positively associated with late presentation: male gender, older age, migration, and heterosexual intercourse or IDU as risk factors for HIV acquisition or IDU. Although in recent years the impact of late presentation on survival decreased, about 10 % of patients diagnosed in more recent years remain at increased risk of death over a long-term follow-up.

It is the big initiatives that will probably form Obama’s lasting biomedical legacy....But such programmes may come at a cost to basic research funding....And it’s not clear whether Obama’s major initiatives will survive under the next president. But,...says Mary Woolley, president of...Research!America,...“Determined advocates [will] be the ones that bridge administrations.”

The [NIH] Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in Rockville, Maryland, which guards against misconduct in biomedical research, usually attracts attention with its findings, not its internal workings. But 2 years ago, its director, David Wright, quit in a public huff, complaining that ORI was hobbled by a dysfunctional federal bureaucracy. Now, his successor is encountering her own rough waters, Science has learned.

Integrated delivery of time-limited PrEP until sustained ART use in African HIV-1-serodiscordant couples was feasible, demonstrated high uptake and adherence, and resulted innear elimination of HIV-1 transmission, with an observed HIV incidence of <0.5% per year compared to an expected incidence of >5% per year.

The 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, in July highlighted the remarkable progress since 2000.....The recent conference aimed to catalyze the work that remains—further scientific advances, addressing stigma, discrimination and other structural barriers within society, and securing the political commitment, including financial resources for prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Washington, DC, has 2.5% HIV prevalence, 3.9% among African Americans. HIV genotype data for individuals enrolled in research studies in metropolitan Washington, DC, were used to identify transmitted drug resistance (TDR) using the WHO mutation list. We identified high prevalence of TDR among HIV-infected individuals in metropolitan Washington, DC, regardless of gender.