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HIV/AIDS
Testing for HIV has doubled diagnosis rates — CDC
Tracing and offering HIV tests to exposed partners and children of people living with the virus led to twice the rate of positive tests...
Preventing drug-induced liver injury in patients with HIV
With an estimated annual incidence rate of 13.9 to 24 per 100,000 inhabitants, drug-induced liver injury (DILI) the leading cause of acute liver failure...
Churches can help increase HIV testing in South African men
An HIV testing campaign conducted within South African churches successfully recruited 43% of the congregation for HIV testing on campaign days and was most...
Systematic review on what works against self-stigma
A systematic review of whether different interventions helped to overcome self-stigma in people in African and Asian countries who are living with or at...
Stepped care programme helps to reduce drinking in those with HIV
People with HIV who drink too much were more likely to reduce drinking after undergoing an approach to care known as integrated stepped alcohol...
New HIV map offers most detailed look yet at the epidemic
The UN has set a goal of ending the global HIV/Aids epidemic by 2030. The tide is slowly turning in south-eastern Africa – which...
Point-of-care technology for early infant HIV diagnosis
Point-of-care testing for early infant HIV diagnosis is highly effective in reducing turnaround time for HIV test results, enabling earlier antiretroviral treatment initiation in...
'Undetectable equals untransmittable' should be basic HIV knowledge
Further evidence that taking anti-HIV drugs stops gay men passing on the virus to sexual partners has been called a "powerful message" which needs...
HIV prevention strategies used by serodiscordant couples
Two years ago, the Opposites Attract study found no transmissions between 343 regular gay couples of differing HIV status where the HIV-positive partner had...
Why the uptake of lopinavir/ritonavir pellets for children has been slow
Lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) oral pellets and oral granules for infants and young children living with HIV have proven advantages in terms of efficacy and tolerability...
Multi-month scripting of ART at scale pays off
As ministries of health and their partners move to scale up differentiated service delivery (DSD) for HIV treatment, one approach is taking the spotlight....
Heating IDPE before injection may be a harm reduction strategy
Studies from Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University have found for the first time that HIV can be transmitted through the sharing of...
Scientists identify rare, paradoxical response to ART
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is usually very effective at suppressing HIV in the body, allowing a person's immune system to recover by preventing the virus...
Rifapentine plus isoniazid non-inferior to isoniazid in HIV related TB
For prevention of tuberculosis (TB) in people with HIV, a single month regimen of rifapentine plus isoniazid was non-inferior to 9 months of isoniazid...
When PrEP should be offered as a 'matter of urgency'
PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) should be offered as a matter of urgency to gay men with a recent STI or multiple condomless partners, found an...
The complicated issue of weight gain with new ARVs
Professor Francois Venter and Dr Simiso Sokhela write in a Spotlight report: “South Africa’s next big shift in our antiretroviral programme is to replace...
First year of PrEP in Scotland: more users than expected, few dropouts, few HIV infections
The report on the first year of the implementation of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) through the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland concludes: “Year one has...
Clusters of co-morbidities in those with HIV show major non-HIV medical needs
Most health problems in people living with HIV in two large cohorts can be classified in six clusters, with cardiovascular disease, metabolic problems, sexually...
Study argues against uniform policy of avoiding dolutegravir in women of child-bearing potential
Although neural tube defect risks may be higher with dolutegravir than efavirenz, dolutegravir will lead to many fewer deaths among women, as well as...
Individual advice from dietitian helps people with HIV manage diabetes risk
Rates of diabetes are higher in people living with HIV than in the general population, but individualised lifestyle advice from a dietitian led to...
Effect of depression on cognitive function in people living with HIV
Compared with patients without HIV, the poorer cognitive performance of people living with HIV (PLWHIV) was partly mediated by a higher prevalence of depressive...
Impact of older ARVs on fat redistribution and CVD risk may be irreversible
Fat redistribution in people with HIV who have ever taken thymidine analogues and/or didanosine (TA/ddI) can persist through time, while increasing cardiovascular risk factors,...
Urine test can provide accurate point-of-care results about PrEP adherence
A point-of-care urine test can accurately determine if a person is adherent to tenofovir-based pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), according to researchers at University of California...
Tests identify HIV's final redoubt
The dynamics of HIV proliferation in the viral reservoir might be the explanation for why viral load fails to become undetectable, especially when adherence...
Healthcare providers challenged on failure to inform HIV patients
Healthcare providers should inform all patients with HIV they cannot transmit HIV to a sexual partner when their viral load is undetectable, argue the...
Dolutegravir-based second-line ART outcomes
Virological response rates were excellent among patients receiving second-line antiretroviral therapy (ART) based on dolutegravir, even when regimens included a nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor...
SA's 'sobering' HIV drug-resistance figures
One in six people not on treatment in a large South African household survey already had drug-resistant HIV and more than half of those...
TB preventative therapy safe in pregnant women
Pregnant women who are infected with HIV and are at risk of tuberculosis co-infection can undergo isoniazid prevention therapy without causing harm to themselves...
Papers on weight gain associated with integrase inhibitor treatment
More evidence that HIV integrase inhibitor treatment is associated with weight gain, and that people gain more weight after beginning treatment with an integrase...
UK man the second to be cleared of the Aids virus
An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the Aids virus after he received a bone...
Community-wide HIV prevention strategy can reduce infections by 30%
Researchers have presented results from the HPTN 071 (PopART) study at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Seattle. The study...
HIV-associated cognitive disorder is being over-diagnosed
Cognitive impairment in people with HIV has multiple causes and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder is being over-diagnosed, clinicians from Brighton report. Assessment of patients attending...
PrEP guidelines/links to resources for medical practitioners in SA
South African guidelines recommend that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) should be considered for people who are HIV-negative and at significant risk of acquiring HIV infection....
Zimbabwe: Weight monitoring key to paediatric ART dosing in resource limited countries
Study findings have revealed that a large percentage of children living with HIV were prescribed inappropriate doses of antiretroviral therapy (ART) at a paediatric...
Data shows less than half of PrEP users keep taking it after 2 years
Real-world data from a large US chain of retail pharmacies show that only two in five people keep on taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for...
Need exists for specialist HIV cognitive impairment services
Prevalence of cognitive impairment (CI) has increased among the HIV population while services for diagnosing and treating afflicted individuals remains scarce, according to a...
Concerns over kidney health among children receiving HIV treatment
Ethiopian children living with HIV experienced declining kidney function but improving liver enzymes while on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, in a recent study.
Researchers at Hawassa...
Latent HIV reservoir not replenished with only dolutegravir therapy
Dolutegravir monotherapy was non-inferior to combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) in patients who started cART during primary HIV infection and were virologically suppressed for >48...
Treatment with efavirenz in children associated with a mild increase in neuro-psychiatric symptoms
A study by researchers at the department of internal medicine, Radboud University Medical Centre, Netherlands reveals children from Tanzania living with HIV on the...
Eliminating risk factors impacting on non-Aids conditions in people with HIV
Preventing smoking, lowering cholesterol, controlling blood pressure and curing hepatitis C would greatly reduce the burden of heart attacks, non-Aids cancers and end-stage liver...