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4 August 2017 VOLUME 18 ISSUE 31

Media Coverage

  • Controversial PrEP study from NHS England due to start in September

    This study plans to enrol 10,000 people at up to 200 sexual health clinics across England, providing open-label oral PrEP to all participants. Some people might be able to enrol through their GP. The study is supported by NHS officials, doctors and community groups that have been involved in the study.

    August 4, 2017
    PrEP
    i-base

  • IAS 2017: France’s next PrEP study aims to assess the wider impact of PrEP on the HIV epidemic

    Whereas previous studies, including...IPERGAY, proved the benefit of PrEP to the individual taking it, the new study has set an ambitious target in relation to [its] public health benefit....The aim is to show that having an extra 3000 people take PrEP will result in a marked fall in HIV diagnoses among MSM in the Paris region. The study will also gather data on best ways to deliver PrEP and how to engage migrants and other groups [with] low awareness of PrEP.

    August 3, 2017
    aidsmap

  • An IAS 2017 wrap-up...

    Between unprecedented success and unprecedented threats, HIV fight confronts complacency, apathy — and resistance.

    August 3, 2017
    Science Speaks

  • Dapivirine study reveals best path forward for future HIV microbicide research

    In a major finding, HIV microbicide researchers have found new and encouraging evidence that the antiretroviral drug dapivirine, a nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), is not impacted by a woman's vaginal microbiome composition when administered as a vaginal gel or film.

    August 3, 2017
    Microbicides
    BodyPRO

  • Long-acting NRTI shows promise for HIV treatment and PrEP

    A single oral dose of MK-8591, a long-acting antiretroviral in a novel drug class, suppressed HIV for seven days in an early clinical trial, and the drug also appears to protect monkeys from rectal infection with an HIV-like virus, researchers reported at IAS 2017 last week in Paris.

    August 2, 2017
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Q&A: Cutting testing wait times to get more infants on HIV treatment

    Today, fewer than 50 percent of the babies who need antiretroviral therapy are started on treatment. Public health experts believe one of the major obstacles has been the often long time between HIV testing and results. The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, with a four-year, $63 million grant from Unitaid, is piloting a project to shorten that waiting period.

    August 2, 2017
    Treatment
    Devex

  • USAID awards up to $25 million to advance vaginal ring for HIV prevention

    The International Partnership for Microbicides will receive up to $25 million over 5 years from the US Agency for International Development to accelerate potential rollout of its monthly dapivirine vaginal ring....The award will also support further study of former participants in the ASPIRE trial and Ring Study; the REACH study, to begin later this year, to assess use of the ring among adolescent girls and young women in four African countries; [and] help accelerate development of a 3-month dapivirine-only ring.

    August 2, 2017
    Microbicides
    Healio

  • HIV hides in more types of bone marrow cells than previously thought

    A team led by University of Michigan researcher Kathleen Collins reports that HIV hides in more types of bone marrow cells than previously thought and that when these cells divide, they can pass the virus's genetic material down to their "daughter" cells intact. This keeps the infection going for years, without tipping off the armed guards of the immune system. Collins and colleagues made the discovery in bone marrow samples donated by dozens of long-term HIV patients.

    August 2, 2017
    News-Medical

  • HIV transmission among gay partners may be prevented using medication, finds new study

    One of the largest studies undertaken has explored the risk of transmitting HIV infection by an HIV infected partner to his non-infected gay partner. Results reveal that HIV positive men who are on medication for HIV that makes their virus load undetectable in blood are not likely to transmit the infection to their non-infected partners. The study entitled Opposites Attract from Kirby Institute was presented at the IAS Conference on HIV Science.

    August 2, 2017
    News-Medical

  • How Swaziland got on track to contain the world's highest HIV prevalence

    Dr. Velephi Okello arrived at last week's International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science with big news:...the findings from a new survey showing that the country — which has the highest adult HIV prevalence in the world — is on track toward epidemic control....The latest Swaziland HIV Incidence Measurement Survey, or SHIMS 2, funded by the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, showed more than 80 percent of adult HIV patients are now taking the drugs and 73.1 percent are virally suppressed.

    August 1, 2017
    Treatment
    Devex

  • IAS 2017: Pioneering HIV researchers tell how public health leadership started with Fogarty fellowships

    In a second-day IAS 2017 session, Dr. Jean Pape, now founder and leader of GHESKIO in Haiti, the first ever comprehensive AIDS center..., and Dr. Linda Gale Bekker, now president of the International AIDS Society and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in South Africa, told conference attendees how a training opportunity named after Rhode Island Congressman [John E. Fogarty] changed the course of not just their work, but of capacities in their countries to prevent, detect and respond to global health threats.

    August 1, 2017
    Science Speaks

  • US HIV funding decisions on PEPFAR in 2017 will have critical effect on ability to reach 90-90-90 goals

    Withdrawal of US funding for HIV treatment and prevention in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to 7.9 million additional HIV infections and almost 300,000 AIDS deaths between now and 2030, according to modelling...by Imperial College London presented last week...in Paris. The modelling also showed that maintaining funding only at existing levels will lead to flatlining of the proportion of people living with HIV who are on treatment and virally suppressed.

    August 1, 2017
    aidsmap

  • After French drug trial tragedy, European Union issues new rules to protect study volunteers

    The EMA has issued new, stricter rules for studies that test drugs in people for the first time. They aim to better protect participants in such first-in-human studies—often healthy volunteers who receive a financial reward. The guideline, issued on 25 July, will take effect in February 2018. It comes in the wake of a tragedy in a French drug study last year that led to the death of one man and serious neurological damage in four others. But some say the revision isn't going far enough.

    August 1, 2017
    Science

  • Report: Philippines has fastest growing HIV epidemic in Asia Pacific

    [There has been] a 140% increase in the number of new infections in the Philippines for the past six years from an estimated 4,300 in 2010 to around 10,500 in 2016....In 2016, 83% of new HIV cases occurred among males who have sex with males (MSM) and transgender women (TGW) who have sex with males, [the] majority among 15- to 24-year-olds. Only 35% of MSM and TGW aged 15 to 24 had correct knowledge on HIV transmission and prevention.

    August 1, 2017
    Philippine Star

  • Adolescents with HIV do better in more prosperous African countries, even with treatment

    Adolescents who acquired HIV perinatally were less likely to die, grew faster and had better immune restoration on treatment if they lived in upper-middle income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a comparative study presented at IAS 2017 reported....The results suggest that factors beyond the ART programme still play an important role in the health and wellbeing of adolescents with perinatally acquired HIV.

    July 31, 2017
    aidsmap

  • IAS 2017: Hold the phone — mobile “health wallet” could make prevention, care, and treatment cheaper, better, and accessible

    Paris: Anyone here have their phone turned off? Millicent Olulo asked that question before she started her presentation in a first-day session here on mobile technologies and health, and was answered with predictable laughter....Other presentations during the session by then had showcased technologies, from text reminders to pills with ingestable microchips, that could improve and monitor treatment adherence.

    July 31, 2017
    Science Speaks

  • AIDS experts fear Trump budget cuts could impact HIV/AIDS fight

    In Paris, HIV/AIDS specialists from around the globe...trumpeted global strides in curbing the HIV/AIDS epidemic but worried that HIV could once again flourish...if the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts to HIV research and treatment...come to fruition...."It must be galling on the one hand to have the good news on the amazing impact that PEPFAR is having in some of the hardest hit countries, yet having this good news obscured by the budget scenario," said Richard Downie of the Center for Strategic International Studies' Africa Program.

    July 31, 2017
    CBS News

  • ART and PrEP: How technological advances can improve adherence

    A review in Current Opinion describes recent technological advances in adherence measurement....Although each has advantages and limitations, [the authors note that] confidence in adherence estimates "is higher when multiple measures indicate similar results, particularly when one or more measures is objective", [and] that...the Hawthorne effect, [a behavior change that occurs as a result of the behavior being monitored,] should be considered.

    July 31, 2017
    PrEP
    Infectious Disease Adviser

  • Mass arrest of 40 gay men in Nigeria may harm HIV fight

    The men were arrested on Saturday afternoon at a private party in a Lagos hotel, where attendees were offered counselling and testing for the virus which causes AIDS, said Bisi Alimi, a Nigerian activist....The police and state government for Lagos were not immediately available to comment on the case...."These men were trying to save their lives and make their country better by preventing the spread of HIV," Alimi told Thomson Reuters.

    July 31, 2017
    Reuters

  • Home-based kit to increase HIV testing

    Research led by William Robinson, PhD, at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health, has found that 86% of heterosexuals who are at high risk for HIV would use a home-based test kit provided by mail and 99% would seek treatment based on a positive result. This self-administered alternative may lead a group whose high risk is under-recognized to treatment sooner. The paper is published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and is available online.

    July 31, 2017
    Science Daily

  • Public trust in science spiked after media coverage of Zika vaccine trial

    Public trust in science has largely held steady for decades, despite short-term fluctuations. But new findings based on a survey of public attitudes toward the Zika vaccine suggest that there is a way to increase public support for science....In the weeks following the vaccine trial, there was "a significant, albeit short term, increase in an otherwise stable indicator of confidence in science," the researchers said.

    July 31, 2017
    Science Daily

  • Namibia approve the use of PrEP in HIV prevention

    As part of government efforts to reduce new infections..., thereby increasing life expectancy, the Ministry of Health and Social Services 2016 National Guideline has expanded the provision of PrEP to individuals at extensive risk of HIV acquisition....PrEP will be offered as part of the combination prevention package that includes HIV testing services, male and female condoms, lubricants, ART for HIV positive partners in sero-discordant couples, voluntary medical male circumcision and STI prevention and management.

    July 31, 2017
    PrEP
    Southern Africa News

  • GP-based testing for HIV is cost-effective

    Offering HIV testing to people at health checks when they register at a new GP surgery in high-prevalence areas is cost-effective and will save lives, according to a study involving over 86,000 people from 40 GP surgeries, led by Queen Mary University of London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The researchers call on health care commissioners to invest urgently in roll-out of HIV screening to all 74 high HIV prevalence local authorities.

    July 30, 2017
    Science Daily

  • Closing an HIV lifeline in Africa: the dire impact of Trump's abortion crackdown

    Celeste, a 30-year-old widow mother of two from the poor suburbs of Maputo...is HIV-positive and since her husband died from an Aids-related illness last year, has no way of supporting herself....One organisation is helping her: Amodefa – the Mozambican Association for Family Development....The poorest women in southern Africa... will be among the worst affected by Donald Trump’s crackdown on family planning groups,...a move [that] risks undermining progress in tackling HIV and Aids in southern Africa.

    July 29, 2017
    The Guardian

  • Daily or on-demand PrEP?

    A study in the Netherlands looked at why gay men prefer daily or on-demand PrEP, and why they switch from one to the other....Daily PrEP users chose because they wanted daily structure, anticipated adherence problems with on-demand dosing, or because they expected to have frequent or unplanned sex. On-demand PrEP users chose it because they usually planned when to have sex, or had risky sex rarely, or had concerns about toxicity...or their ability to adhere to it.

    July 28, 2017
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Bone risk with tenofovir: how to handle?

    A common HIV medication is not linked to an increased risk of broken bones, a researcher said at the International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science, and in general there is no need to switch drugs. In cases [of]...heightened risk of fracture owing to osteopenia, switching from tenofovir disoproxil fumarate should be the second choice to adding zoledronic acid (Zometa) to treatment mix.

    July 28, 2017
    MedPage Today

  • Janssen’s HIV vaccine shows promise in clinical trial

    Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ lead investigational HIV vaccine regimen that targets a wide variety of HIV-1 subtypes was well-tolerated and elicited HIV-1 antibody responses in 100% of healthy volunteers, according to first-in-human clinical data from the APPROACH trial. The regimen, was one of seven different prime-boost vaccine regimens examined in the phase 1/2a trial.

    July 28, 2017
    Healio

  • Raltegravir lowers HIV in late pregnancy

    Late-presenting HIV-infected women who are treated with integrase-based antiretroviral therapy can rapidly reduce their viral load -- more quickly than treatment with a protease inhibitor-based treatment, reported Carlos Brites, Universidade Federal de Bahia in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, and colleagues at the International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science.

    July 27, 2017
    MedPage Today

  • To end HIV, discriminatory laws must be repealed

    Why aren’t more people getting tested and treated? While our country’s complex health care system is certainly part of the problem, we’re also being held back by harmful laws and policies that discourage people from getting tested, and so from getting the treatment they need. More than 30 states have laws that can be used to prosecute people living with HIV....HIV criminalization isn’t limited to the United States.

    July 26, 2017
    STAT News

  • HVTN 705 vaccine study passes its "go" criteria: due to start this autumn

    HVTN 702, now running, is only the 8th human vaccine efficacy trial ever run in the history of the HIV epidemic and the first since 2009. From this autumn, it will have company....In HVTN 705, 2600 sexually active women aged 18-35 in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique will be given a candidate HIV vaccine or placebo and followed for three years to see if it stops [their] becoming infected with HIV.

    July 26, 2017
    HIV Vaccine
    AIDSmap

  • News & documentary Emmy nomination for 'The End of AIDS?'

    The PBS NewsHour video series "The End of AIDS?" has been nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences....The reporters traveled to San Francisco, Atlanta, New York, Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa to see how various communities are tackling the problem. Awards will be presented on October 5, 2017 in New York City.

    July 26, 2017
    Pulitzer Center

  • HIV: End of triple-drug therapy?

    With more powerful anti-HIV drugs, the triple therapy paradigm might be changing....Two studies, one conducted in the U.S. and one in Argentina, showed promising efficacy for different two-drug regimens...."There has been a concern" that using fewer than three drugs would be less effective and more likely to allow the development of drug resistance," James Hakim, University of Zimbabwe, told MedPage Today.

    July 25, 2017
    MedPage Today

  • Study points to penile microbiome as a risk factor for HIV in men

    A ten-fold increase in some types of bacteria living under the foreskin can increase a man's risk of HIV infection by up to 63 percent, according to researchers at Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. This study, published in mBio, shows for the first time that penile bacteria may be a previously unrecognized risk factor for HIV infection in men...[and] suggests that this risk factor may be sexually transmissible.

    July 25, 2017
    Science Daily

  • Fading hopes of finding a cure to HIV is changing the focus of AIDS research

    In their 36-year battle, researchers have always come up short against the virus’ guerrilla tactics — hiding out in human cells and playing dead only to re-emerge and attack as soon as treatment is stopped....The new buzzword is "functional cure". Unlike a traditional cure,...the patient would still have HIV in their system. But the virus would be so weakened that it could not replicate, or spread to sexual partners, for a prolonged period of time — researchers hope permanently — without the need for daily drugs.

    July 21, 2017
    Cure
    Business Live

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