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9 JANUARY 2015 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 2

Media Coverage

  • Contraceptive injection raises risk of HIV, research warns

    Contraceptive injections moderately increase a woman’s risk of becoming infected with HIV, a large scientific analysis has found. The research in a leading medical journal will further fuel a controversy that has been raging for more than two decades.
    January 9, 2015
    Guardian

  • Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission programme progressing

    Minister of Community Development Mother and Child Health Emerine Kabanshi said in a statement that more than 95 percent  of women attending ante-natal services are tested for HIV and most now receive antiretroviral treatment. “The success of the country`s EMTCT programme has been the result of the introduction of the more efficacious prophylactic ARV regimens...[I]ntegration of EMTCT into the sex and reproductive health also offers an opportunity to strengthen the programme".
    January 7, 2015
    Zambia Daily Mail

  • Circumcision can lead to an AIDS-free South Africa

    By reducing the number of new HIV infections we also reduce South Africans’ vulnerability to other potentially lethal infections....That’s why medical male circumcision is so potent....Combined with other preventative measures, such as consistent condom use, regular HIV testing, delaying sexual debut and reduction in the number of sexual partners, circumcision is the closest intervention we have to an HIV vaccine for now.
     
    January 7, 2015
    Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision
    Daily News

  • Broad immune response may be needed to destroy latent HIV

    A major barrier to finding a cure for HIV/AIDS is the presence of latent HIV in the cells of chronically infected individuals. But a team of Yale and Johns Hopkins researchers may have pinpointed a strategy for eliminating the residual virus. The study is published online on Jan. 7 by the journal Nature. The results of this study have major implications for the design and development of a therapeutic vaccine to cure HIV patients.
    January 7, 2015
    Therapeutic Vaccines
    Science Daily

  • Elite controllers may pay a high price for their low viral load

    About one in 200 people with HIV maintains an undetectable viral load and high CD4 counts without having to take antiretroviral therapy. These so-called ‘elite controllers’ [ECs] have long been the targets of research into how their immune systems control HIV replication, and whether treatments such as therapeutic vaccines could induce the same state in other HIV-positive people....A recent US study brings into question whether ECs are the right model for trying to achieve a ‘functional cure’ for HIV.
    January 7, 2015
    aidsmap

  • Inovio Pharmaceuticals HIV immunotherapy shows characteristics considered vital to treating HIV

    Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that results [published in Molecular Therapy] from a 12-patient phase I study of its HIV immunotherapy, PENNVAX-B, in HIV-infected patients revealed that immune response characteristics generated by the immunotherapy were similar to those observed in HIV-infected individuals who without treatment do not progress to further stages of the disease.
     
    January 6, 2015
    Morningstar

  • CDC vastly expands 'Prevention with Positives' guidelines

    The CDC has taken its 24-page 2003 “prevention with positives” document and expanded it into a 240-page tome that...stresses the centrality of HIV-positive people in the effort to prevent new cases of the virus, pointing out that targeting them with prevention efforts is more likely to reduce HIV incidence than trying to change the behaviors of millions of people who are at risk.
    January 6, 2015
    POZ

  • 13 scientific predictions for 2015

    We'll get closer to stopping HIV....[I]mportant steps in diagnosis and treatment mean that scientists have reason to think we could be at a turning point in the fight against the virus. Backpack-sized diagnostic labs are expected to arrive in Africa, and new drugs like Truvada can actually prevent people from catching HIV in the first place. And...scientists say that new insights into the structure of certain HIV proteins put them closer than ever towards actually developing a vaccine.
     
    January 6, 2015
    Business Insider

  • Gates Foundation uses art to encourage vaccination

    Mr. Muniz, the Brazilian-born photographer known for his unorthodox materials, has been working with bioengineer and designer Tal Danino on a series of trompe l’oeil images of microscopic organisms: cancer cells, healthy cells and bacteria....The work will be used in a new online campaign, The Art of Saving a Life, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The intent is to promote vaccination just in time for an international effort to raise funds to inoculate millions, especially in poor nations.
    January 6, 2015
    HIV Vaccine
    New York Times

  • Pneumonia risk far higher for HIV-positive children, study shows

    HIV-positive children in developing countries are six times more likely to die from pneumonia than children without the virus, research suggests. The first global study into pneumonia deaths in children with HIV has found that, in one year, pneumonia affected 1.4 million children and led to a further 88,000 deaths.
     
    January 6, 2015
    Science Daily

  • The Berlin patient, first and only person 'cured' of HIV, speaks out

    Timothy Ray Brown, long known only as the "Berlin Patient", had HIV for 12 years before he became the first person in the world to be cured of the infection following a stem cell transplant in 2007. He recalls his many years of illness, a series of difficult decisions, and his long road to recovery in the first-person account, "I Am the Berlin Patient: A Personal Reflection," published in a special issue on HIV Cure Research and available free on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website.
     
    January 6, 2015
    Science Daily

  • HPV vaccination not associated with increased risk of multiple sclerosis

    Although some reports have suggested a link between human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and development of multiple sclerosis or other demyelinating diseases (a group of central nervous system disorders), a follow-up of girls and women in Denmark and Sweden who received this vaccination found no increased risk for these disorders, according to a study in the January 6 issue of JAMA.
    January 6, 2015
    HPV Vaccines
    Science Daily

  • Gay Ugandans face new threat from anti-homosexuality law

    “Go away! We know who you are. We don’t want you in our country. If we see you, we’ll burn you to death.” Melanie Kiwagama reads out the text messages she received last year, after Uganda’s notorious anti-homosexuality bill came into effect....Despite being annulled by the country’s constitutional court last summer, MPs haven’t given up on attempts to further criminalise homosexuality. According to a leaked draft, a new law is in the making.
     
    January 6, 2015
    Guardian

  • Number of Cambodian villagers infected with HIV rises to more than 200

    The number of people infected with HIV in a remote village in western Cambodia’s Battambang province has risen to more than 200, including poor farmers who are saddled with loans....Some of those infected had been working in Thailand....News of the infections emerged just as...the government allocated U.S. $3.7 million of the national budget to HIV treatment from 2015 to 2017—the first time it had earmarked funds for the country’s treatment program.
    January 5, 2015
    Radio Free Asia

  • Byproducts from bacteria awaken dormant T-cells, HIV viruses

    Dental and medical researchers from Case Western Reserve University [have] discovered that byproducts of bacteria in gum disease, called metabolic small chain fatty acid (SCFA), can work together to wake up HIV in dormant T-cells and cause the virus to replicate. Their findings help explain why people with the HIV -infections and periodontal disease have higher levels of the virus in their saliva than HIV patients with healthy gums.
    January 5, 2015
    Science Daily

  • African nations can help more on AIDS, study says

    The 12 African countries that receive most of the American taxpayer dollars spent fighting AIDS could do much more to pay their own way, according to a new study....The study, by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Results for Development Institute in Washington, was published in the January issue of the Lancet Global Health and paid for by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    January 5, 2015
    New York Times

  • How to cure the pandemic that women face

    When violence is inflicted upon women and girls, we rightly think of it as a crime and a tragedy. But we should also recognize it for what it truly is: a global pandemic and a public health crisis....We need to act as we would in the face of any other epidemic — by responding appropriately to victims and moving swiftly to implement preventive measures. But what, exactly, works?
    January 2, 2015
    Washington Post

  • In South Africa, HIV-positive mothers help others fight AIDS

    Mitchell Besser, a Harvard-educated obstetrician and gynecologist with decades of experience, learned an uncomfortable truth about the limits of medicine 15 years ago when he began working with expectant mothers in South Africa: In a country where nearly a third of women of childbearing age are HIV-positive, being a doctor wasn’t always enough to make a lasting difference in his patients’ lives....Dr. Besser saw that HIV-positive women who got treated could help fill a dangerous gap.
    December 26, 2014
    Wall Street Journal

  • Can AIDS be cured?

    The fight against AIDS is following a trajectory similar to that of the fight against many cancers....At UCLA during the brutal first years, I never would have imagined that future patients would live into their eighties. A fatal disease has been tamed into a chronic condition. The next step is to find a cure. Scientists are innately cautious, and AIDS researchers have learned humility over the years. Science operates around a core of uncertainty, within which lie setbacks, but also hope.
     
    December 22, 2014
    New Yorker

  • Cambodia 'doctor' faces murder rap in HIV outbreak

    An unlicensed medical practitioner suspected of negligently infecting more than 100 villagers in northwestern Cambodia with the virus that causes AIDS was charged Monday with murder and other crimes, a prosecutor said. Yem Chhrin was charged with murder carried out with cruelty, intentionally spreading HIV and practicing medicine without a license, said Nuon San, a Battambang provincial court prosecutor.
    December 22, 2014
    Associated Press

  • Bill and Melinda Gates are spending their money the wrong way, critics say

    Aid groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have spent tens of billions of dollars battling deadly infectious diseases....Such groups “are doing more damage than good,” said Salman Rawaf, professor, Imperial College London, and an adviser to WHO....While Rawaf’s views are particularly strident, many officials say spending billions of dollars to fight ailments such as AIDS, malaria, and polio rather than supporting basic health services has left nations unprepared for epidemics like Ebola.
    December 22, 2014
    Bloomberg

  • CDC researchers publish estimate of effectiveness of condom use in anal sex

    A paper this month in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes finally makes publicly available a study [by Dawn K Smith and three other researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] ...which gives an estimate for the effectiveness of 100% condom use as the strategy of choice for the prevention of HIV infection in gay men. They estimate that condoms used consistently stop seven out of ten HIV infections acquired through anal sex between men.
    December 19, 2014
    aidsmap

  • Gates’ strict open access policy may have domino effect

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is to introduce an open access policy for the studies it funds that goes further than most other research funders....Observers say the foundation’s move may inspire other funders to adopt similarly stringent open access policies, too. But there are also concerns that developing world scientists who receive funds from the foundation may be prevented from publishing research in local journals, some of which lack open access options.
    December 18, 2014
    SciDevNet

  • Enzyme inhibitors suppress herpes simplex virus replication, study finds

    A family of molecules known as NTS enzyme inhibitors are promising candidates for new herpes virus treatments according to a new study published in the December issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. The findings could lead to new treatment options for herpes that patients can use in conjunction with or instead of currently approved anti-viral medications like Acyclovir. Researchers likened a combination of treatments for herpes to a cocktail of medications HIV patients take.
    December 18, 2014
    Science Daily

  • How llamas' unusual antibodies might help in the fight against HIV/AIDS

    Most vaccines work by inducing an immune response characterized by neutralizing antibodies against the respective pathogen. An effective HIV vaccine has remained elusive so far, but researchers have continued to make progress, often employing innovative methods. A study published December 18th in PLOS Pathogens reports that a combination of antibodies from llamas can neutralize (destroy) a wide range of circulating HIV viruses.
    December 18, 2014
    HIV Vaccine
    Science Daily

Published Research

  • High incidence is not high exposure: What proportion of prevention trial participants are exposed to HIV?

    Randomized clinical trials of HIV prevention in high-risk populations of women often assume that all participants have similar exposure to HIV. However, a substantial fraction of women enrolled in the trial may have no or low exposure to HIV. Our objective was to estimate the proportion of women exposed to HIV throughout a hypothetical high-risk study population.

     

    January 9, 2015
    PLOS ONE

  • SHARE: a milestone in joint programming for HIV and intimate partner violence

    Intimate partner violence is highly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and its role in increasing women's risk of HIV acquisition is well recognised. The most important challenge for researchers is to develop combination interventions. Thus far there have been key trials in South Africa with the Stepping Stones intervention and the IMAGES study, which combine microfinance and a gender intervention.
     
    January 8, 2015
    Lancet

  • Opportunities for improving the efficiency of paediatric HIV treatment programmes

    Clinically driven monitoring of ART is cost-effective in most circumstances. Routine laboratory monitoring is generally not cost-effective at current prices, except possibly CD4+ testing amongst adolescents initiating ART. Committing resources to ensure continued provision of cotrimoxazole in health facilities is more likely to represent an efficient use of resources.
    January 8, 2015
    AIDS

  • Are hormonal contraceptive users more likely to misreport unprotected sex? Evidence from a biomarker validation study in Zimbabwe

    Self-reported sexual behavior was compared with the presence of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in vaginal fluid, a biomarker of semen exposure. Of the 195 women who were PSA positive, 94 (48 %) reported no sex or only condom-protected sex. Hormonal contraceptive users misreported sexual behavior less than women using non-hormonal methods. This misclassification pattern could have implications on the elevated risk of HIV infection associated with hormonal contraception in some studies.
     
    January 8, 2015
    Hormonal Contraceptives and HIV
    AIDS and Behavior

  • A proposal to use iterative, small clinical trials to optimize therapeutic HIV vaccine immunogens to launch therapeutic HIV vaccine development

    The first step in therapeutic HIV vaccine design should be discovery of immunogen constructs with potential for activity and their optimization to meet the challenges of HIV-1 sequence diversity and human polymorphism in T cell antigen presentation. A strategy for doing this is discussed in this article...as an alternative to funding a more traditional competition among private manufacturers and product champions of individual, already designed products.
     
    January 8, 2015
    Therapeutic Vaccines
    AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses

  • Integrated prevention of mother-to-child transmission for human immunodeficiency virus, syphilis and hepatitis B virus in China

    Between 2010 and 2013 the number of pregnant women attending antenatal care clinics with integrated PMTCT services increased from 5.5 million to 13.1 million. In 2013, 12.7 million pregnant women were tested for HIV, 12.6 million for syphilis and 12.7 million for HBV. Mother-to-child transmission of HIV fell to 6.7% in 2013. Integrated PMTCT services proved feasible and effective, and are now part of routine maternal and child health services provided to infected women.
    January 8, 2015
    WHO Bulletin

  • Association between antiretroviral therapy adherence and employment status: systematic review and meta-analysis

    Employed HIV-infected individuals, particularly those in low- and high-income countries, were more likely to adhere to ART than unemployed individuals. Further research is needed on the mechanisms by which employment and ART adherence affect each other and on whether employment-creation interventions can positively influence ART adherence, HIV disease progression and quality of life.
    January 8, 2015
    WHO Bulletin

  • Partner-based adherence intervention for second-line antiretroviral therapy (ACTG A5234): a multinational randomised trial

    We did a multicentre, international, randomised clinical trial at nine sites in Botswana, Brazil, Haiti, Peru, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe....Partner-based training with modified directly observed therapy had no effect on virological suppression. The intervention does not therefore seem to be a promising strategy to increase adherence. Intensive follow-up with clinic staff might be a viable approach in this setting.
    January 8, 2015
    Lancet

  • Funding AIDS programmes in the era of shared responsibility: an analysis of domestic spending in 12 low-income and middle-income countries

    We propose metrics to estimate domestic AIDS financing, using methods related to national prioritisation of health spending, disease burden, and economic growth. We apply these metrics to 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa with a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, generating scenarios of possible future domestic expenditure....Coupled with improved resource tracking, such metrics could enhance transparency and accountability for efficient use of money and maximise the effect of available funding to prevent HIV infections and save lives.
    January 8, 2015
    Lancet Global Health

  • Hormonal contraceptive use and women's risk of HIV acquisition: a meta-analysis of observational studies

    The evidence from epidemiological research into whether use of hormonal contraception increases women's risk of HIV acquisition is inconsistent. We did a robust meta-analysis of existing data to provide summary estimates by hormonal contraceptive method which can be used to inform contraceptive guidelines, models, and future studies.
    January 8, 2015
    Lancet

  • Broad CTL response is required to clear latent HIV-1 due to dominance of escape mutations

    The predominance of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL)-resistant viruses in the latent reservoir poses a major challenge to viral eradication. Our results demonstrate that chronically infected patients retain a broad-spectrum viral-specific CTL response and that appropriate boosting of this response may be required for the elimination of the latent reservoir.
    January 7, 2015
    Nature

  • Two independent HIV epidemics in Saint Petersburg, Russia revealed by molecular epidemiology

    We sought to explore the epidemiology of the epidemic in St. Petersburg by sampling from the highest risk groups of PWID and men who have sex with men (MSM) and use viral sequencing data to better understand the nature of the city's epidemic....[Our] findings suggest two independent epidemics with little overlap between the two highest at-risk populations, which will require different HIV prevention approaches.
     
    January 5, 2015
    AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses

  • Emergence of novel A/G recombinant HIV-1 strains in Argentina

    The predominant circulating HIV-1 strains in South America are subtype B and B/F recombinants with different distributions among countries. We identified three different A/G recombinants in Argentina....The detection of new or unusual subtypes is important to avoid false-negative PCR HIV-1 early diagnosis due to detection failures and for future vaccine development.
    December 22, 2014
    AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.

  • Exploring the potential of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for HIV-1 eradication

    The HIV field has seen an increased interest in novel cure strategies....Here we discuss prospects for a monoclonal therapeutic-based “shock and kill” strategy that may lead to the permanent elimination of replication-competent virus, making a functional cure a reality for all patients afflicted with HIV worldwide.
     
    December 17, 2014
    AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses

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