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Early treatment to halt neurological damage
Soon after an individual’s initial infection with HIV, damage to brain volume and cortical thickness progressively worsens until anti-retroviral treatment is started, a study...
HIV primary care visit intervals up to 9 months do not worsen viral load
Gaps of up to 9 months between primary care visits for patients with HIV did not result in significant increases in viral load, according...
Tenofovir and FTC does not increase pre-term birth and early infant death
A drug combination aimed at preventing transmission of HIV from a pregnant woman to her foetus likely does not increase the risk for preterm...
Gaps in health outcomes for adolescents with HIV but treatment expanding
Research highlights significant gaps in health outcomes for adolescents born with HIV across the world – but paints a hopeful picture for the future...
Drop in US funding may cause HIV/Aids epidemic to 'go out of control'
The HIV and Aids epidemic could become uncontained if current funding trends continue, warned Dr Mark Dybul, one of the founding architects of the...
Puzzle over whether HIV accelerates cancer progression
Although people living with HIV may be diagnosed with cancer at an earlier stage because they get more consistent care than the general population,...
TAF only superior to TDF when used with a boosting agent
The benefits of tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) over tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) may have been overstated, according to the results of a meta-analysis. It was...
Violence impacts on HIV treatment adherence in SA
Adolescents living with HIV in South Africa are less likely to be adherent to their HIV treatment after experiencing or witnessing violence in the...
Those with very low CD4 counts have highest mortality risk after starting Tx
Mortality in people with a low CD4 cell count at the time of HIV diagnosis is associated with a group of risk factors including...
Comparative safety and efficacy of HIV 1 treatment regimens
For patients infected with HIV-1, tenofovir alafenamide plus emtricitabine has a renal and bone safety profile similar to that of abacavir plus lamivudine, according...
Peer navigation helps HIV-positive released prisoners
HIV-positive inmates who receive healthcare navigation services from peer mentors stand a better chance at maintaining long-term viral suppression after their release from incarceration.
Researchers...
Regimen including efavirenz raises suicidal behaviour risk
An analysis of the global START trial has found that beginning treatment with a regimen including Sustiva (efavirenz) is associated with an increased risk...
Abdominal obesity and elevated LDL a risk for people with HIV
People living with HIV are at increased risk for abdominal obesity, hypertriglyceridemia, and elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol but not hypertension, according to a...
Explaining the stubborn decline of HIV rates in SA women compared to men
The reason the extremely high rates of HIV infection in women are not declining compared to men, is because more conscientious treatment-and-care behaviors of...
Cardiovascular risk higher for people with HIV
People with HIV are more likely to develop cardiovascular conditions, including atherosclerosis and peripheral artery disease, than their HIV-negative counterparts, researchers reported at the...
Emergency HIV testing effective in identifying patients currently missed
A non-targeted testing approached by the emergency department in a South African hospital revealed a high HIV prevalence with a significant burden of undiagnosed...
Integrase inhibitors not raising risk of IRIS in the severely immunocompromised
Use of an integrase inhibitor, which can bring down viral load rapidly, was not associated with an increased risk of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome...
Powerful new PrEP treatment has potential to be first oral weekly
Merck's MK-8591 has considerable potential to become the first HIV drug that could be taken as an oral pill weekly, either as treatment or...
PrEP project sees Australian HIV infection rates fall
The state of New South Wales in Australia has seen a fall of one-third in diagnoses of recent HIV infection since it started its...
Statins lower cancer risk in both HIV-positive and HIV-negative people
Both HIV-positive and HIV-negative people who use statins to manage cardiovascular disease risk also have a lower risk of cancer, according to research presented...
Importance of primary care physicians for people with HIV
People with HIV who have other medical conditions such as high blood pressure or high lipids appear to do better if they have a...
Women more vulnerable to HIV infection during pregnancy and months after birth
A study presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2018) found that women in two prevention studies were nearly three times...
New TB screening methods cut deaths in people with HIV
Screening for tuberculosis (TB) and intensified follow-up of TB cases in people starting antiretroviral therapy and urine-based screening of inpatients with HIV both have...
Third-line HIV regimens effective in resource-limited settings
Third-line regimens with darunavir/ritonavir and raltegravir are highly effective in certain patients with HIV in resource-limited settings, Healio reports according to researchers. Targeted real-time...
One-month TB prophylaxis as effective as 9-month regimen for people living with HIV
A one-month antibiotic regimen to prevent active tuberculosis (TB) disease was at least as safe and effective as the standard nine-month therapy for people...
Dolutegravir and Rifapentine study stopped due to serious toxicities
A study examining pharmacokinetic interactions between the first-line HIV drug dolutegravir and a once-weekly tuberculosis regimen was terminated early after NIH researchers found that...
Lymphoma treatment outcomes just as good for people with HIV
People with HIV treated for aggressive forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma or Burkitt lymphoma appear no more likely to suffer a relapse after treatment than...
Alcohol use not affecting short-term rate of CD4 count decline
Unhealthy alcohol use did not affect the short-term rate of CD4 cell count decline in HIV-infected, antiretroviral treatment (ART)-naive individuals in Uganda, according to...
Death rates of Zambians on ART underestimated up to ninefold
People with HIV in Zambia were at least ten times more likely to die in the first two years after starting antiretroviral treatment (ART)...
Darunavir/ritonavir for ART-experienced patients
Darunavir/ritonavir is the most durable boosted protease inhibitor for antiretroviral (ART)-experienced patients, investigators from the EuroSIDA cohort report. Patients switching treatment to a darunavir/ritonavir...
Interpersonal psychotherapy delivered to HIV patients telephonically
Interpersonal psychotherapy is a common, in-person treatment for depression, but research from the University of Georgia found that this type of one-on-one therapy can...
In the HIV population, bone loss is greater among women
Bone mineral density declines twice as quickly among HIV-positive women than HIV-positive men, according researchers at the University of Colorado, University of Texas Health...
Perinatal safety outcomes with atazanavir and darunavir
Atazanavir and darunavir, two HIV protease inhibitors (PIs) commonly used during pregnancy, have similar safety and activity profiles, according to study findings.
Investigators from Italian...
TB treatment outcomes good for multidrug-resistant TB/HIV co-infected patients who start ART
Treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) has comparable efficacy and survival rates in patients infected with HIV and not uninfected with HIV when patients with...
Many young women unworried about HIV despite multiple risk factors
Many adolescent girls and young women with multiple risk factors for infection with HIV do not consider themselves to be at high risk for...
SA study shows why some progress to Aids before others
HIV/Aids researchers have never understood why people infected with HIV developed Aids at different times‚ but now they suspect that it all has to...
Long-acting injectable ARVs are convenient and private
HIV-positive people who took injectable cabotegravir + rilpivirine every four or eight weeks as antiretroviral therapy found it more convenient and discreet than daily...
UNAIDS 90-90-90 goals short of projections in Africa survey
Fewer than half of the adolescent girls and young women living with HIV who were tested for the virus as part of door-to-door surveys...
TB biomarker predicts mortality risk in children with HIV
Children with HIV in Kenya whose urine samples tested positive for lipoarabinomannan (LAM) – biomarker of tuberculosis – had a nearly five-fold increased risk...
New surveillance model to improve HIV treatment strategies
A study that seeks to better ascertain HIV mortality rates in Zambia could provide a model for improved national and regional surveillance approaches, and...