29 September 2017 VOLUME 18 ISSUE 39

The European Medicines Agency isn't mincing its words about the challenge it faces with the relocation that will be forced on it by Brexit....The agency's bosses are warning the EU's leaders not to put it somewhere where staff simply will not follow....The agency has released details of its most recent staff retention survey...and says the findings raise "serious concerns," because "for certain locations, staff retention rates could be significantly less than 30%."

The future of UNAIDS is being a "global health advocacy and accountability organization" that integrates HIV work with reproductive health and other important health issues, Michel Sidibé said in this second part of his interview with Global Health Now. Achieving this will help the organization transform itself and reduce the fragmentation that's too common in global health, he says.

The rate of HIV diagnoses among older men and women in Europe increased over a 12-year period and in 2015 -- the end of the study period -- were significantly more likely to present at a later stage of the disease than younger men and women, Lara Tavoschi and colleagues at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Sweden wrote online in The Lancet. The report comes just days after the CDC reported a similar pattern among US men who have sex with men.

The majority of HIV-positive people in the UK are not receiving recommended monitoring of cardiovascular risk, according to an audit conducted by the British HIV Association (BHIVA) published in BMC Infectious Diseases....There was wide variation between clinics in monitoring rates for some conditions. But the survey also revealed some excellent practice, with monitoring of viral load and adherence to antiretrovirals exceeding national targets.

Around one in six new cases of HIV diagnosed in Europe are in people over age 50....Researchers at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control found steady growth over the past 12 years in rates of new HIV cases in older people, [with] over 50s more likely....to have advanced HIV...and to have contracted it via heterosexual sex. “Our findings suggest a new direction in which the HIV epidemic is evolving,...potentially a result of older people’s low awareness of HIV and how it is transmitted,” said Lara Tavoschi, who led the research.

Ethiopia plans to conduct a study on HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities carried out during the past 15 years. According to the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, the study will be conducted on more than 25,000 adults and children in 395 identified areas across the country....It is the first HIV/AIDS study of its kind in the country.

More and more men visiting the red-light district in Kolkata, India, are willing to pay steep fees to be with virgin girls under the mistaken belief doing so can cure or stave off HIV. The myth of so-called “virgin-cleansing” originated in Africa in the 1990s and spread to Southeast Asia....As poverty pushes a wave of migrants into Kolkata,...the misconception has resurfaced, putting young girls at risk of being trafficked and contracting HIV. “We need to stop this now,” says anti-sex-slavery advocate Dipesh Tank.

Because ongoing pain...affects 39 to 85 percent of people living with HIV, everyone with the infection should be assessed for chronic pain, recommend guidelines released by the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and published in Clinical Infectious Diseases....Those who screen positive should be offered a variety of options for managing pain, starting with non-drug treatment such as cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga and physical therapy.

With many new and recurring crises..., the future direction of US global health is unclear. [Thus], the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was charged with conducting a consensus study....The global community must not forget persistent health priorities the world has been addressing for several decades: HIV–AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria....The committee called for sustained commitment to the PEPFAR and PMI programs, but also for broadening PEPFAR to make it more flexible and to incorporate chronic health conditions.