28 April 2017: Volume 18 Issue 17

We focus on revealing that epigenetic immunity, in addition to the known innate and adaptive immunities, plays a pivotal role in the control of HIV infection, reprogramming patient immunity, and successful potential AIDS vaccination toward a cure.

Each year, the CDC recognizes April as STD Awareness Month....This year, the CDC is particularly focused on syphilis prevention, as the rate of reported cases is the highest it has been in 20 years....In recognition of STD Awareness Month, Infectious Disease News spoke with Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

A new report from The King’s Fund highlights how improvements in treatment mean that.. people with HIV are able to live longer, healthier lives....But while HIV care in England is among the best in the world, the report, funded by the M·A·C AIDS Fund, found that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has created a complex and fragmented system for HIV care.

Addressing the China-Africa Ministerial Conference on Health Cooperation [in Pretoria], the Chinese vice premier hailed China-Africa health cooperation as an epitome of the China-Africa community of shared future....More than 200 participants, among them UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe, attended....At the conference, China signed agreements on maternal and child health care cooperation..., hospital cooperation..., and a free-cataract-surgery program with [various] African countries.

Switching from branded Atripla to regimens that include at least one generic drug formulation can achieve big cost savings without compromising virological efficacy, according to research....presented to the recent conference of the British HIV Association. The annual cost saving associated with the treatment switch was £159,000.

San Francisco's Justin Herman Plaza was full as the premarch rally begins. City supervisor Jeff Sheehy was one of three politicians who opened the rally with stories of why they're marching. "I turned 60 yesterday," he said, eliciting cheers and well wishes from the crowd. "Hold on," he continued. "I've been living with HIV for 20 years. Without science, I would be dead."

Despite successful treatment, people receiving antiretroviral drugs continue to have small amounts of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in their blood, as well as elevated immune system activation. However, new research published in PLOS Pathogens shows no correlation between these two measurements.

Current UK guidelines recommend that HIV-positive nursing mothers should exclusively formula feed...But while medical interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission are provided free by the NHS,...according to research presented to the conference of the British HIV Association, a quarter of women did not receive any provision for formula feed and...more than half reported that they or their family went hungry in order to buy formula milk.

The rate of primary and secondary syphilis in the United States among men who have sex with men (MSM) is 106 times that of men who have sex with women only, researchers said....The disparity is even greater — 167.5-fold — when MSM are compared with women.

The tension between rigor and relevance across contexts is at the center of two conversations in implementation research. One conversation is among investigators immersed in the traditional scientific principles of rigorous human subject research...who must sometimes be persuaded of...relevance across varied real-world practice contexts. The second is among implementers and evaluators embedded in real-world programs, settings, and populations.

Three attitudinal themes emerged: (1) providers' role is to support patients in making informed decisions, (2) risk behavior while taking PrEP does not fully offset PrEP's protective benefit, and (3) PrEP-related risk compensation is unduly stigmatized....Participants were critical of other healthcare providers'...reluctance to prescribe PrEP due to anticipated risk compensation [and some] acknowledged an evolution in their thinking toward greater acceptance.