Increased
expenditure on social protection programmes – sickness, disability and
unemployment benefits, old age pensions, housing support – is associated with
improved tuberculosis (TB) control, according to an analysis of data from
European Union (EU) countries published in Lancet
Infectious Diseases.
“Social protection
spending is strongly associated with lower tuberculosis case notification,
incidence, and mortality rates,” comment the

“There’s
only one Berlin patient still. But by this time next year he will at least be
joined by 40-50 Portland monkeys.”  This
was vaccine researcher Louis Picker, summarising in quotable form why the
outlook for the development of an effective HIV vaccine is brighter than it has
been for years, in a Satellite session

In
an extraordinary development, a second European scientific trial of
pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has had its randomised phase closed early due
to high effectiveness, just
two weeks after the UK PROUD trial did exactly the same thing.
The
investigators of the IPERGAY trial, which has six sites in France and one in
Canada, announced today a “Significant

While international rhetoric on HIV and AIDS frequently
invokes human rights, putting these ideas into practice in specific settings
remains challenging, according to a process evaluation of an intervention in
rural South Africa published in the October issue of Culture, Health and Sexuality. Although female health volunteers
understood gender inequalities to be a key

Relazioni familiari fondate sullo scambio, sulla fiducia e sull’astinenza da giudizi morali da parte dei familiari riduce il rischio di comportamenti sessuali ad alto rischio e di conseguenza riduce il rischio di contrarre l’HIV.

Non-nucleoside
reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) and boosted protease
inhibitors work equally well for people starting HIV treatment for the first
time, with similar viral suppression, CD4 cell gains, and disease
progression, according to a large meta-analysis presented
at IDWeek 2014 earlier this month in Philadelphia. A related study
shed light on factors affecting choice of
initial antiretroviral regimen.

Three
quarters of infants starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) across eleven clinics in southern Africa had
severe HIV disease and 87.2% met the 2006 World Health Organization (WHO)
definition of severe immunosuppression, according to a study presented at the
2014 Southern African HIV Clinicians Society conference in Cape Town, South Africa, last
month.
There
was a modest improvement

Three
quarters of infants starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) across eleven clinics in southern Africa had
severe HIV disease and 87.2% met the 2006 World Health Organization (WHO)
definition of severe immunosuppression, according to a study presented at the
2014 Southern African HIV Clinicians Society conference in Cape Town, South Africa, last
month.
There
was a modest improvement

No, we cannot treat our way out of the HIV epidemic, was the
resounding sentiment of a panel of expert clinicians and the audience, at a
debate held at the 2014 Southern African HIV Clinicians Conference in Cape Town
last month.
Professor Richard Chaisson of the Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine argued that

A single-tablet
regimen containing the hepatitis C virus (HCV) nucleotide polymerase
inhibitor sofosbuvir and
the NS5A inhibitor ledipasvir - the combination in Gilead Science’s
recently approved Harvoni pill - was well-tolerated and cured 97% of
patients with HCV genotype 1 in the Phase 3 ION trials, researchers
reported at the IDWeek 2014 meeting earlier this month in
Philadelphia.
The
advent of direct-acting antiviral agents has revolutionized treatment for
chronic hepatitis C, especially with the long-awaited