3 November 2017 VOLUME 18 ISSUE 44

Gilead Sciences and GlaxoSmithKline are heading for an HIV showdown, pushing rival treatment visions and competing products that are expected to hit the market in the next few months. Gilead is likely to secure the bigger near-term win…while GSK is placing a longer bet that its core drug is potent enough to work with just one other.

A study of men who have sex with men (MSM) conducted by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in collaboration with the gay contact site Hornet has found that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) usage has not increased, on average, among its respondents over the proportion reported last year, when a similar survey was carried out.

ViiV Healthcare reported the discovery of a new experimental HIV attachment inhibitor that was effective in treating people with “highly drug-resistant HIV.” In the BRIGHTE Phase 3 study (in which ViiV was a participating partner), researchers found that a drug called fostemsavir was able to control the viral load in about half the study’s participants

The words people use to talk about HIV affect the way people living with HIV feel about themselves. These words also have an impact on how others perceive people living with HIV.

A simple pill taken once a day and used in the US and Europe has shown encouraging results in stopping the spread of HIV, and AIDS-Fundet, the Danish AIDS organisation, would like to see it used in Denmark.

One piece of a future vaccine for HIV might be falling into place, as researchers announced they found a way to target molecules that protect the virus from the body’s immune system.

Canada's new feminist foreign aid policy provides hope…. Donor countries are increasingly and publicly focusing on women first as they set their priorities…. We now need more countries like Canada to join in reducing the inequities that women face in public health crises like HIV.

Data comparing hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in HIV-infected [HIV(+)], and HIV-uninfected [HIV(−)] individuals recruited into the same study are limited HBV infection status did not differ by HIV infection status.

HIV-negative female sexual partners of migrant miners were offered daily tenofovir/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) for 6 weeks concurrent with miners' return home…. In this first study assessing the use of short-term PrEP, a high percent of female partners of migrant workers initiated PrEP and had detectable DP levels during follow-up.

Young men who have sex with men (YMSM) face a disproportionately high burden of HIV. Oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is effective in preventing HIV acquisition, but adherence to PrEP among YMSM may be inadequate. Medication adherence may be assessed via biomarkers, which are expensive and invasive, or via self-report through Audio Computer Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI), which may result in over-reporting of adherence. In this paper we assess the potential of a new method of self-report, the Interactive Questionnaire System (iQS), in validly estimating true adherence rates.