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China's Ministry of Health reports about 900,000 cases of active TB in 2011

"About 900,000 cases of active tuberculosis (TB) were discovered and treated in China in 2011, including 423,000 infectious cases, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced Monday at a press conference," Xinhua reports.

21 Mar 2012

Study tests new method of sound simulation for treating tinnitus

A new clinical trial is to test whether a pocket-sized device that uses sound simulation to reboot faulty 'wiring' in the brain could cure people with the debilitating hearing disorder tinnitus.

21 Mar 2012

Indian patent court licenses generic copy of Bayer’s blockbuster anticancer drug

Last week an Indian patent court shocked the $600 billion global pharmaceutical business by ordering Bayer, the German health care giant, to allow a tiny Indian generic drug company to sell cheap copies of the blockbuster cancer drug Nexavar – even though everyone agrees that the drug is protected by a patent. Instead, the court decided that Bayer had an obligation to make Nexavar available to people in India who needed it.

20 Mar 2012

CSIS report examines HIV prevention, care among people who inject drugs in Ukraine

A new report, titled "Injection Drug Use in Ukraine" and published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), examines the challenges of providing HIV prevention and care services in the country, particularly to people who inject drugs (PWID), who accounted for "nearly 50 percent of new HIV infections registered in 2010," according to the CSIS website.

20 Mar 2012

AIDS survey preliminary data show stagnation in Uganda's HIV prevalence, need for improved prevention strategies, experts say

A preliminary report on the Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey, conducted by the Ministry of Health, shows the country's "HIV prevalence rate has stagnated over the last 10 years, and the number of people infected with HIV has risen from 1.8 million people to 2.3 million today," the Observer writes.

20 Mar 2012

TB Alliance launches new combination drug trial

In an ambitious effort to stem the dangerous tide of tuberculosis (TB) and deadly drug-resistant TB around the world, TB Alliance today announced that it has launched a first-of-its-kind clinical trial to test a novel drug combination – in both patients who have TB and those who have multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).

19 Mar 2012

Largest ever academic-industry research project to find new drugs for ASD

An international consortium of scientists, led by Roche, King's College London, and Autism Speaks, is collaborating on one of the largest ever academic-industry research projects to find new methods for the development of drugs for autism spectrum disorder.

From CSL Ltd 19 Mar 2012

Greater Than AIDS, SiriusXM OutQ to launch SpeakOUT

SiriusXM OutQ, the nation's first and only 24/7 LGBT radio channel, and Greater Than AIDS, a national movement to respond to AIDS in America, announced today the launch of SpeakOUT: Real Talk about AIDS in Gay America, a limited-run series of live, call-in shows that will connect listeners across the country with medical experts, people living with HIV and notable members of the LGBT community to have an honest and challenging dialogue about the current state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the gay community as well as the country at large.

17 Mar 2012

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator discusses AIDS 2012 conference

"For the first time in over 20 years, the biennial International AIDS Conference will be hosted on American soil," U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby writes in this post in the AIDS.gov blog.

17 Mar 2012

Partnerships critical to stopping HIV/AIDS, GBV among women

"For the past two weeks, the buzz in Washington, D.C., and at the White House is all about women and girls," Roxana Rogers, director of the USAID Office of HIV/AIDS, writes in this "IMPACTblog" post. She highlights a recently announced initiative, funded through PEPFAR, "to help local communities and grassroots organizations fight HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence.

17 Mar 2012

Cuts to health budget lead to increases in HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB incidence in Greece

"The savage cuts to Greece's health service budget have led to a sharp rise in HIV/AIDS and malaria in the beleaguered nation, said a leading aid organization on Thursday," the Guardian's "News Blog" reports.

17 Mar 2012

Zimbabwe's plan to conduct household HIV testing raises concerns among some advocates

PlusNews examines the challenges and concerns surrounding Zimbabwe's plan to conduct a door-to-door HIV testing campaign, which has not yet begun but "is already being met with skepticism by activists who feel this is not a priority for the country, especially with global HIV/AIDS funding on the decline."

17 Mar 2012

World Bank report urges African governments, development aid donors to increase HIV prevention efforts

"With much of the global economy facing slowing growth and uncertain prospects, especially in developed countries, a new World Bank report" -- titled "The Fiscal Dimension of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, and Uganda" -- "urges African governments and their development aid donors to do significantly more to prevent new HIV infections" and "warns that current spending on HIV/AIDS relates to past infections and is a potentially misleading indicator of the long-term public cost of the fight against HIV/AIDS," a World Bank press release states.

17 Mar 2012

Research roundup: Medicaid vs. private pay ER use; Doctors treat black, white patients differently; Caregiver stress

By looking at National Health Interview Survey data of more than 230,000 patients from 1999-2009, researchers were able to compare Medicaid with privately insured patients. More than 39 percent of those enrolled in Medicaid in the sample used the ER versus 17.7 percent of privately insured patients. Medicaid patients wer much more likely to have "specific barriers to timely primary care."

17 Mar 2012

Deletion of Hms1 protein inhibits Candida albicans infection

Scientists at the University of Toronto have found a molecular mechanism that plays a key role in the transition of Candida albicans yeast into disease-causing fungus-one of the leading causes of hospital-acquired infection.

17 Mar 2012

Study reveals why development of HIV treatments has been difficult

A new research report appearing in the March 2012 issue of the journal Genetics shows why the development of a cure and new treatments for HIV has been so difficult. In the report, an Australian scientist explains how he used computer simulations to discover that a population starting from a single human immunodeficiency virus can evolve fast enough to escape immune defenses.

16 Mar 2012

Promoting women's rights, addressing inequalities essential to AIDS fight

"The Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues (S/GWI) and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are committed to advancing the rights and health of women and girls around the world," U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby and Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer write.

16 Mar 2012

Joint initiative to support GBV programs with PEPFAR funding

Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby on Monday "announced a joint initiative to provide $4.65 million in small grants to grassroots organizations to address gender-based violence (GBV) issues" through HIV/AIDS programs, according to a State Department press release.

16 Mar 2012

U.S. must recommit itself to ending AIDS, scientifically and financially

"There is a lot of optimism now in the community of public health officials and advocates who work on AIDS. ... But, even as we know more, there are still disputes about how best to move forward on both prevention and treatment," commentator Richard Socarides, a former White House adviser under President Bill Clinton, writes in the New Yorker's "News Desk" blog.

16 Mar 2012

Japan makes largest-ever contribution to Global Fund

Japan on Monday provided a $340 million contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "the highest amount that Japan has ever made in 10 years of vigorous support for the Global Fund," according to a fund press release.

16 Mar 2012