27 MAY 2016 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 21

The clinical trial at the Kirby Institute in Australia will test the new HIV prevention drug - pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). While PrEP is not yet listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, one of the drug's brand, Truvada, has received a license from the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Professor Sharon Lewin from the Melbourne-based Doherty Institute expressed hopes that the NSW trial will help bring the new HIV drug to more Australians.

There has been a long-term decline in condom use by American gay men, researchers from CDC report in AIDS [and] cannot be explained by serosorting or other seroadaptive behaviours. Moreover condom use began to fall long before PrEP became available. The survey data were collected in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014 in 21 American cities as part of the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance.

About 125 million people are affected by crises. A quarter of those people are female and of reproductive age – and women are 14 times more likely than men to die in a crisis. On Monday global thinkers, activists and politicians will come together for the world humanitarian summit in Istanbul to tackle some of these issues. It’s time for them and us to act as the world faces the largest refugee crisis since the second world war.

The response to PrEP from NHS England has been frustratingly underwhelming - the journey to make PrEP available on the NHS has been dogged by delays, false starts, red tape and apathy... On 31 May, NHS England's specialised commissioning committee will meet to decide whether the previously agreed approval process for PrEP should continue. When that meeting happens, that group will effectively help decide on the future of the HIV epidemic in the UK.

In light of heavy criticism of the World Health Organization's handling of the Ebola outbreak, the election process for the next director general will be under intense scrutiny, say experts in a new article. In The BMJ, Devi Sridhar and colleagues outline the key questions on epidemic preparedness for prospective candidates.

New data released in ECDC's Annual Epidemiological report show that since 2010, overall syphilis rates have been going up across Europe, particularly among men. In 2014, the reported syphilis numbers were six times higher in men than in women. Almost two-thirds of the syphilis cases reported with information on transmission category were recorded in men who have sex with men.

Overall, testing for gonorrhea and chlamydia increased significantly between Baseline and Intervention Year, and 50 percent more gonococcal and 47 percent more chlamydial infections were detected. Syphilis testing coverage remained unchanged. Nearly 95 percent of 350 men who participated in the STI self-testing program completed site-specific testing appropriately based on self-reported exposures, and 92 percent rated their self-testing experience as "good" or "very good."

A significant proportion of transmitted HIV drug resistance (TDR), primarily in older, white MSM, was undetected by conventional testing. The greatest underestimation was for rapid-decaying mutations typically associated with the source virus having recent exposure to ART. However, total TDR prevalence was highest in the less than 20-year age group who were predominantly black, underscoring the importance of prevention efforts for at-risk youth.

Compared with men in the opt-in period, men in the opt-out period were significantly more likely to accept assistance from the partner notification officer (PNO). Opt-out referral to partner notification officers was associated with a substantially higher proportion of partners at risk of HIV being contacted.

Controlling for race, reported contraceptive use/sexual practices, and clinical trial, we found... no significant correlations between serum estradiol and progesterone levels and CV endpoints. The hypothesis that the LUT phase of the menstrual cycle represents a more vulnerable stage for mucosal infection with HIV was not supported by data from samples obtained from the lower genital tract (ectocervix and vagina) from... two clinical trials.

17,361 respondents completed the risk self-assessment... The post-test email survey revealed a high service acceptability rate. The service was the first of its kind in the UK. This evaluation provides evidence to inform the potential roll-out of further online strategies to enhance community HIV testing.

[Our] data show that parenteral immunization elicits systemic and mucosal antibodies in women. Interestingly intranasal immunization was an effective prime for IM boost, while intravaginal administration had no detectable impact on systemic or mucosal responses despite IM priming.