An
estimated 813,000 people with diagnosed hepatitis C in the US have undergone
liver disease staging and meet the ‘highest’ or ‘high’ priority criteria for
immediate treatment, according to an analysis presented at the American Association for the Study of Liver
Diseases (AASLD) Liver Meeting last month in Boston. The number would be even

Nearly one-third of chronic hepatitis C patients
with liver cirrhosis and 12% with advanced fibrosis progressed to
decompensation within five years, and 23% and 11%, respectively, died,
according to a study presented at the
American Association for the Study of Liver
Diseases (AASLD) Liver Meeting last month in Boston. These findings underscore the
urgent need for

Vaginal
microbicides were partially developed in response to power differentials within
sexual relationships and gender norms that make it difficult for women to
negotiate other forms of HIV protection, as it can be used without the male
partner’s knowledge, consent or compliance. However, evidence presented at the HIV Research for Prevention
conference (R4P) held in

The Department of Health’s funding for HIV Prevention
England, the national HIV prevention programme in England, will be cut by 50%
from April 2015. This will have a significant impact on local prevention and
testing services and on the dozens of organisations that act as local delivery
partners.NAT (National AIDS Trust) has described the

The Department of Health’s funding for HIV Prevention
England, the national HIV prevention programme in England, will be cut by 50%
from April 2015. This will have a significant impact on local prevention and
testing services and on the dozens of organisations that act as local delivery
partners.NAT (National AIDS Trust) has described the

Smoking doubles
the mortality risk for people with HIV taking antiretroviral therapy, a
study published in AIDS shows.
Smokers had an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and
non-AIDS-related cancers, and the life expectancy of a 35-year-old man with HIV
was reduced by almost eight years due to smoking.
“Smoking was
associated with a two-fold

No new HIV infections have
occurred among more than 500 users of the Kaiser Permanente healthcare provider
system in the US in members using pre-exposure prophylaxis — better known as
PrEP.
However, condom use appears to be
declining among a subset of gay men, according to a small survey presented at a
December 1 forum commemorating

A modelling study based on the UK’s HIV epidemic among gay
men estimates that two-thirds of infections originate in men with undiagnosed
HIV, 85% in men who are not taking treatment and 90% within the context of an
ongoing sexual partnership. Moreover, HIV transmissions most frequently involve
men under the age of 35 who

Difficult-to-treat hepatitis C patients with
liver cirrhosis who were not cured with a prior course of first-generation HCV
protease inhibitors had a sustained response rate of 96-97% when re-treated
with sofosbuvir/ledipasvir with ribavirin for 12 weeks or without ribavirin for
24 weeks, researchers reported at the
American Association for the Study of Liver
Diseases (AASLD) Liver

Poor weight gain
after starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) is associated with increased
mortality risk for children with HIV, investigators report in the online
edition of AIDS. An international
team of researchers developed a model to examine the association between weight
gain and mortality risk for children starting ART. Poor weight gain was
associated with increased mortality