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31 OCTOBER 2014 VOLUME 15 ISSUE 44

Media Coverage

  • Indonesian brothel closures hit HIV prevention

    Brothel closures in Indonesian cities could put sex workers in danger and hamper HIV prevention efforts, say health experts and outreach workers. In 2013 [in the name of public morality] Surabaya’s firebrand mayor closed two of the city’s six red light districts, and in June 2014 shut down Dolly, one of the largest sex work complexes in Southeast Asia....
     

     

    October 31, 2014
    IRIN

  • What is expected from the HIV conference?

    The world is waiting for good news as scientists and researchers gather in Cape Town, South Africa for the HIV prevention conference....Exciting areas include prospects for long-lasting prevention options, implications of the latest HIV antibody discoveries for vaccine development, research into microbicides and other female-controlled prevention methods, antiretroviral therapy to reduce HIV infection and transmission, multipurpose prevention technologies to block HIV and other sexually transmitted infections or prevent pregnancy simultaneously, and the
    October 30, 2014
    New Vision

  • HIV R4P: Conference co-chair and “vaginal ecologist” Sharon Hillier talks about “the beautiful ecosystem,” and how to make it more resistant to HIV

    “People around the world have mysterious notions about the vagina,” Sharon Hillier, one of five co-chairs of HIV R4P,...is here to explain her work, which she sums up as making vaginas much more resistant to HIV....To that end she describes herself as a “vaginal ecologist”....,immersed over the last decades in the search for a vaginal microbicide,...“a product designed to prevent or reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases when inserted in the beautiful ecosystem.”
     
    October 30, 2014
    Science

  • Why can't an HIV vaccine be rushed like Ebola's?

    Scientists studying HIV say they're under new pressure to come up with a vaccine because of the quick response to Ebola....While HIV researchers have made advances towards a vaccine, Sharon Hillier, University of Pittsburgh, co-chairing a conference of more than 1,300 HIV researchers in Cape Town this week, called the virus "crafty" in its latency....“It’s not unusual for viruses to take a long time to be figured out,” Amapola Manrique of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise said.
     
    October 30, 2014
    NBCNews.com

  • Mushroom extract, AHCC, helpful in treating HPV

    A Japanese mushroom extract appears to be effective for the eradication of human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a pilot clinical trial at the Medical School. The results were presented at the 11th International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology in Houston today by principal investigator Judith A. Smith, associate professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, UTHealth Medical School.
    October 30, 2014
    Science Daily

  • Chinese AIDS activist says she was kept from UN conference

    A Chinese AIDS activist says she had to cancel a trip to Geneva this week to attend a United Nations conference on women after local officials seized her passport and forced her to tell conference organizers that she was “too sick” to participate. Wang Qiuyun, 46, a member of the Women’s Network Against HIV/AIDS China, was to have consulted Thursday with experts reviewing China’s case before the Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
    October 30, 2014
    New York Times

  • Important news on PrEP

    In the last two weeks, two separate studies of Truvada as pre-exposure prohylaxis (PrEP) have found that it is highly effective in reducing the risk of HIV infection for HIV-negative gay men. Both studies have announced their results much earlier than planned, because the evidence of effectiveness came much sooner than had been anticipated. These dramatic results give new impetus for PrEP to be made available to gay men in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. So far it has only been offered to men taking part in the research trials.
    October 29, 2014
    AIDS Focus

  • HIV conference opens in South Africa

    The first ever global scientific conference on HIV research for prevention research [HIV R4P 2014] opened today in Cape Town and brought together about 1,300 researchers, funders, advocates, clinicians, private sector partners and policy makers from 48 countries to usher in a new era in prevention science....Its chairs are five of the world’s leading experts in HIV prevention research: Doctors Anatoli Kamali from Uganda,...Sharon Hillier and Eric Hunter from USA, Helen Rees from South Africa and Robin Shattock from the UK.
    October 28, 2014
    New Vision

  • The South African HIV scientist who gave girls back control of their bodies

    Last weekend Quarraisha Abdool Karim, one of South Africa’s top HIV researchers, became the first woman to receive a US$100,000 (£62,000) 2014 TWAS-Lenovo Science Prize for developing world scientists. The prize is a welcome recognition for the 54-year-old epidemiologist. Abdool Karim has devoted her career to developing tools that African women can use to protect themselves against HIV. She is involved in developing a battery of new methods, including anti-HIV gels and long-term injectables.
    October 28, 2014
    Guardian

  • Low HIV and AIDS rates saw west Africa ‘miss out on health investment’

    West Africa, now in the throes of a calamitous Ebola epidemic, missed out on significant health investment over the past decade or more because it had low rates of HIV.... A major project, Indepth, looked at causes of death of 110,000 people in 13 countries [and] shows that health improved generally in those given substantial international aid to try to turn around the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But west Africa, with severe poverty and low healthcare standards but relatively little HIV, did not benefit.
    October 28, 2014
    Guardian

  • Don’t forget about AIDS

    Last week Wyoming became the 32nd state to allow gay marriage—explicitly or, by refusing to appeal court decisions, implicitly. Alaska. Arizona. Idaho....These are great advances, and there is no question that those who believe in marriage equality must be vigilant in protecting them. But as engaged as the gay community and civil rights activists have been in the fight for marriage equality, we have lost ground on the fight that so intensely galvanized the gay community to begin with: HIV and AIDS....
    October 27, 2014
    New York Times

  • Thailand leads way to ending AIDS

    Thailand has set the global standard for how a country can effectively respond to Aids. And as a key member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) it also has initiated policies which have changed the region's approach to HIV....The lessons learnt from Thailand can lead the thinking on how to re-engineer approaches around the region. Through its Asean membership the country can use its voice to highlight the potential for change.... 
    October 27, 2014
    Bangkok Post

  • Melinda Gates shares scalable ways to invest in women

    Even though our existing forms of contraception aren’t great, as far the market is concerned, they’re good enough....But in developing countries, these existing forms don’t work as well....Women in developing countries tell us they want longer lasting forms of contraception that could be self-administered....So one thing our foundation is doing is making the investments that will...turn the world’s greatest scientific minds to meeting the needs of the world’s poorest women and girls.
    October 24, 2014
    Fortune

  • Ebola’s rapid death march: It’s time we learnt

    Ebola and HIV are not direct virological relations. Ebola is an extremely contagious hemorrhagic virus whose incubation period is very rapid and which, once in the bloodstream, quickly infects many cell types, leading to multi-organ failure and shock....HIV is a retrovirus [that] targets only particular cells and takes a long time to wear down our immune systems....However, [Ebola andHIV] are closely related in their social pathogenesis.
    October 20, 2014
    Daily Maverick

Published Research