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6 May 2016 VOLUME 17 ISSUE 18

Media Coverage

  • HIV Prevention Pill Approved in Australia

    Truvada, which is used as a form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV, has been approved in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the national regulatory authority.

    May 6, 2016
    PrEP
    Star Observer

  • Should prostitution be a crime?

    Human rights advocates tend to focus on people in grim circumstances. “Like many feminists, I’m conflicted about sex work,” says Liesl Gerntholtz, executive director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, which took a stand in favor of decriminalization four years ago....."Would I like to live in a world where no one has to do sex work? Absolutely. But that’s not the case. So I want to live in a world where women do it largely voluntarily, in a way that is safe.

    May 5, 2016
    NY Times

  • Tanzania: more needed in AIDS 'Three Zero' plan

    While Tanzania has succeeded to reduce new HIV infections rate from 7 to 5 per cent in the past 8 years at the national level, prevalence rate remains high in some groups....Due to this situation, the Ministry of Health, Social Development, Gender, Elderly and Children and other stakeholders, through USAID funding, have launched a national campaign to encourage adolescent girls and women aged 15 to 24 years to voluntarily go for medical check-ups.

    May 4, 2016
    The Citizen

  • Zimbabwe’s multimillion dollar power contracts awarded to drug dealers, corrupt, bankrupt companies

    The bulk of these contracts have gone to Intratrek, whose executive chairman, Ibrahim Yusuf, has a history tainted by drugs charges in Zambia and even the sale of unapproved circumcision devices in South Africa....South African media reports from 2010 say he had “exclusive distribution rights” to the Tara Klamp, described as “a questionable male circumcision device” used by the Kwazulu-Natal government without WHO approval.

    May 4, 2016
    New Zimbabwe Vision

  • China has a long way to go before it achieves 90-90-90 targets

    Research conducted in Shandong Province showed that only 60% of people with HIV were diagnosed; 42% of diagnosed patients were on antiretroviral therapy and 60% of ART-treated patients had viral suppression. “Overall, only 15% of infected patients transitioned through the care continuum from initial diagnosis to viral suppression,” comment the investigators. “Attrition occurred at each step of HIV care.”

    May 4, 2016
    aidsmap

  • Opt-out HIV testing in a hospital emergency department may cost less than managing two patients with undiagnosed HIV

    Opt-out HIV testing in accident and emergency departments in areas of high HIV prevalence is likely to save NHS trusts money..., according to presentations at the British HIV Association conference in Manchester last week....Although national guidelines have recommended [such] testing...since 2008, financial pressures have discouraged local NHS managers from implementing the policy.

    May 4, 2016
    aidsmap

  • UNAIDS welcomes landmark decision by Supreme Court to prohibit HIV discrimination

    [Sri Lanka's] highest court issued the directive in response to a fundamental rights violation petition filed by Chandani De Soysa, who...became a widow last year. When she tried to enrol her five-year old son in a local school, he was denied admission because he was believed to be living with HIV. With support from UNAIDS and the Positive Women’s Network, De Soysa filed her petition with the Supreme Court.

    May 3, 2016
    Daily FT

  • Combining Pap, hrHPV tests could drastically reduce cancer miss rates

    Cytopathology researchers at Houston Methodist Hospital recently found that combining two diagnostic tests, Pap and high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV), dramatically decreased the chance of missing tumors and high-grade lesions by sevenfold.

    May 3, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Number of HIV infections falling in United States, but fails to meet reduction goals

    The number of new HIV infections occurring annually in the United States decreased by an estimated 11 percent from 2010 to 2015, while the HIV transmission rate decreased by an estimated 17 percent during the same period, according to new research. But despite important progress on these key indicators, the researchers say the US fell short of the goals outlined in the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy released by President Obama's administration in 2010.

    May 3, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Is the US HIV epidemic in much better shape than we thought?

    Here’s the good news: There may be considerably fewer people living with HIV in the United States, and the HIV population may have a much higher rate of viral suppression than the CDC estimated. The bad news is that the CDC’s potentially faulty estimates may have thrown off various other presumptions about the state of the US HIV epidemic.

    May 3, 2016
    POZ

  • Which men stand to benefit most from access to PrEP?

    New data from the PROUD pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) study have identified the characteristics of the gay and other men who have sex men who are most likely to benefit from PrEP. Gay men with rectal STIs and who have more unprotected receptive anal sex with more partners are most likely to benefit from PrEP, [the] PROUD study analysis shows.

    May 3, 2016
    PrEP
    aidsmap

  • Fourth HIV Congress of the Americas focuses on women

    The feminization of AIDS is accelerating. Doctor Alicia Piñeirúa Menéndez said it is important to understand the context in which women face HIV;...women with HIV are often monogamous, less educated, lower paid and in unstable economic situations. Women with HIV, said Piñeirúa Menéndez, who are not part of a community or a specific population, have an especially difficult time getting diagnosed.

    May 2, 2016
    The News

  • AIDS nonprofit sues San Francisco over denial of permit

    A global nonprofit that provides healthcare services for HIV and AIDS patients has sued the city of San Francisco for allegedly stopping it from opening a clinic and pharmacy for political reasons. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the US District Court, Northern District of California, the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation said it was being punished for its public opposition to the widespread use of pre-exposure prophylaxis, known as PrEP, to prevent the spread of HIV.

    May 2, 2016
    Reuters US News

  • All set for AIDS Indaba in Durban, South Africa

    As some of you might be aware,the International AIDS Conference takes place in Durban, South Africa from July 18 to July 22, 2016. I thought I should share some of the highlights of that conference which I received via a statement from the organisers....All these topics sound good though these are the same issues that are discussed over and over again. It is my sincere hope that something new will come out of these topics especially on thorny ones such as PrEP.

    May 2, 2016
    Times of Zambia

  • How do gay men diagnosed with HIV change their risk behaviour?

    Two Australian surveys conducted over the last few years have found that in the immediate aftermath of diagnosis, gay men considerably reduce the number of partners they have sex with – many stopping sexual activity altogether – and also reduce the amount of condomless sex they have with partners of unknown HIV status. There was also an increase in HIV status disclosure.

    May 2, 2016
    aidsmap

  • Parasitic worms may hold key to cutting spread of HIV

    Women are three times more likely to be infected with HIV if they have female genital schistosomiasis, studies carried out in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Africa and Mozambique have found. "It's going completely under the radar," Marianne Comparet, director of the London-based International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases said.

    May 2, 2016
    Deccan Chronicle

  • It's tough to stop sex, study of US AIDS effort shows

    “Abstinence promotion” policies the US funded for more than a decade...to slow the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are largely ineffective, a new evaluation of the program concludes....That funding didn’t influence the number of sex partners people had, age at which they started having sex, or teen pregnancy rates, according to a study in Health Affairs by Stanford School of Medicine researchers.

    May 2, 2016
    Bloomberg

  • Hypertension increases among HIV patients from 1996-2013

    A recent analysis of hypertension rates suggested that incidence among HIV patients has more than tripled from 1996 through 2013 and are accompanied by an increase in several hypertension risk determinants such as obesity or diabetes.

    May 2, 2016
    Healio

  • HIV vaccine update

    In 2015, Bill Gates caused a media stir by expressing optimism that a vaccine and a cure for HIV will become a reality within the next 15 years. The National Institutes of Health and other researchers have made progress in understanding how HIV antibodies develop and the potential of a vaccine to stimulate the immune system of those without HIV infection to produce these antibodies, however the science is still considered to be in its infancy.

    May 1, 2016
    HIV Vaccine
    PharmaVOICE

  • Stress and depression is linked to HPV-related health problems

    New research to be highlighted at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2016 Meeting is the first to suggest that stress and depression play a significant role in whether a woman with human papillomavirus (HPV) can get rid of her infection or not. HPV that lingers in a woman's system eventually can lead to cervical cancer.

    April 30, 2016
    Science Daily

  • HPV infection can be identified in self-collected vaginal swabs

    High risk, potentially cancer-causing HPV infections are common in Papua New Guinea. But self sampling with vaginal swabs may screen as accurately as the more labor-intensive approach using cervical samples. This finding is critical to ensuring that women are treated in this largely unconnected (electronically) country and others like it.

    April 29, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Anti-HIV pill not cost effective among US drug abusers

    Providing anti-HIV pills to people who abuse injection drugs in the US would reduce infections and save lives but end up costing the healthcare system billions of dollars a year, researchers say. The message for policymakers is that...even as part of a comprehensive screening and treatment program for injection drug users, PrEP would not be cost effective, study author Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University in California, and his colleagues write in the Annals of Internal Medicine, April 25.

    April 28, 2016
    PrEP
    Yahoo News

  • More targeted interventions to diagnose HIV during acute infection are needed, researchers warn

    Men who have sex with men (MSM) diagnosed with HIV in the acute phase of HIV infection have a greater number of recent sexual partners and more condomless sex than MSM diagnosed with chronic HIV infection, according to research published in the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The study was conducted in Los Angeles.

    April 28, 2016
    aidsmap

  • HPV vaccination expected to reduce cancer in all races, may not eliminate all disparities

    Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers occur more frequently among Hispanics, blacks, American-Indians, and Alaska Natives than among whites. A new study finds that HPV vaccination is expected to reduce the cancer burden across all racial/ethnic groups. However, some disparities in cancer burden may persist and widen in the years to come if their causes, such as lack of access to diagnoses and treatment, aren't addressed.

    April 28, 2016
    Science Daily

  • Anti-vaxxers alive in South Africa; risking children's lives

    Western anti-immunisation movements have taken root in local communities resulting in some parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Nearly a third of South African children are not vaccinated, placing them at risk of catching serious diseases.

    April 28, 2016
    Bhekisisa

  • Glowing virus maps points of entry through entire female reproductive tract for first time

    Finding the vulnerable points where HIV enters the female reproductive tract is like searching for needles in a haystack. But using the light of a firefly gene,...scientists have shown...that HIV enters cells throughout the entire female reproductive tract, not just the cervix as previously thought. Now scientists know where to attack it.

    April 27, 2016
    Science Daily

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