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Mother and baby cytomegalovirus screening important to prevent consequences

According to health experts, pregnant women and newborns should be screened for a virus that causes brain damage and deafness. The study that appeared in the latest issue of The Medical Journal of Australia yesterday says hundreds of cases of cytomegalovirus (CMV) are likely being missed each year in Australia because of a lack of screening, denying babies treatment for the condition.

19 Jun 2011

Additional funding announced for PEPFAR programs in Africa

In a post on State's "DipNote" blog, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby describes accompanying Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Africa.

18 Jun 2011

Report outlines lessons from AIDS advocates

A new report from the consulting firm HCM Strategists and the nonprofit group FasterCures "analyzes the factors that helped patient advocates drive research into and drug development for HIV/AIDS, and tries to figure out whether there are lessons to be learned for other disease advocates," the Wall Street Journal's "Health Blog" writes.

18 Jun 2011

Integrating AIDS fight with other global health efforts is next step

An "invisible turning point" in the fight against HIV/AIDS recently occurred: "the realisation that simply strengthening the vertical programme that is AIDS has to end. The new opportunity is integration," a Lancet editorial states.

18 Jun 2011

Technology aids in maintaining quality of life in aging

Dorothy Rutherford is anxiously typing at her home computer, filling in answers to an online spelling game. Gerontologists say aging in place vastly improves the quality of life for seniors and is a lot cheaper for society than group homes and institutions.

18 Jun 2011

Civil unrest creates serious health implications in South Sudan

BMJ reports on the health affects of civil unrest in South Sudan, which will become the world's newest country on July 9.

17 Jun 2011

University of Leicester, Wellcome Trust curate AIDS poster exhibition at New Walk Museum

Images from around the world of the most serious epidemic in history are to go on public display in Leicester. Spreading the Word: AIDS Posters from Around the World is the exhibition curated by University of Leicester academic Dr Sarah Graham, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust. It takes place at the New Walk Museum from 15 July -28 August.

17 Jun 2011

AFP says battle against AIDS not over in India

Though the country has reduced by half the number of new infections since 2001, "UNAIDS coordinator in India, Charles Gilks, said that while the authorities should be commended for tackling the problem, the country had not yet won the battle," the news agency reports.

16 Jun 2011

Panel discusses funding for universal access to HIV treatment

The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog includes a summary of a recent Global Fund meeting on HIV financing. "The most dynamic and passionate remarks came from Morolake Odetoyinbo, CEO of the non-governmental organization Positive Action for Treatment Access in Nigeria and a woman living with HIV/AIDS. She argued that African nations were not doing enough to use their resources to care for their own people," according to the post.

15 Jun 2011

Local misconceptions of children's immune systems hindering HIV treatment in Malawi, study says

Some caregivers in rural Malawi have expressed a reluctance to begin antiretroviral therapy for children living with HIV because of a belief that their "bodies were too weak for pills and their blood was 'still raw,' but that as it 'ripened' with time, HIV-related opportunistic infections would leave them," according to a study presented this week at the 1st International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference in Durban, South Africa, PlusNews reports.

15 Jun 2011

Roundup: Conn.'s 'moderate' Medicaid cuts; Calif. adult day care threatened; disabled face 'unclear futures'

The national Center for Reproductive Rights filed a federal lawsuit Monday to halt implementation of the requirements that women wanting an abortion must have a sonogram and hear a detailed description of the fetus. The group called the mandates patronizing and an intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship.

15 Jun 2011

U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS declaration sets new targets in fight against disease

World leaders on Friday at the U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS adopted by consensus a declaration stating that HIV is "an unprecedented human catastrophe" and set new targets in the fight against the disease, the Associated Press/Forbes reports.

14 Jun 2011

Science Speaks series interviews key players in global AIDS fight

In the final installment of a series recognizing the 30th anniversary of AIDS on the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog, John Donnelly interviews Warren "Buck" Buckingham, director of the Office of AIDS Relief at the Peace Corps, about his work in the field.

14 Jun 2011

Now is not the time to give up on fighting AIDS

Accomplishing the targets set forth in the U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS declaration "would cost billions more per year from all sources," a New York Times editorial states.

14 Jun 2011

New software holds promise for revolutionising treatment of hearing impairments

New software 'hearing dummies' are part of cutting-edge research that promises to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of hearing impairments.

14 Jun 2011

IRIN examines factors influencing health worker migration and how countries working toward solutions

In this article, "IRIN took a look at some of the push and pull factors behind health worker migration, and what countries are doing to address them."

14 Jun 2011

Billions committed for children’s vaccines

British Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged £814m to help vaccinate children around the world against preventable diseases like pneumonia. He made the announcement at a summit in London where countries are being asked to give an extra £2.3bn ($3.7bn) by 2015 for child vaccines. He said, “Three children die every minute from pneumonia alone. Waiting is not the right thing to do and I don't think that 0.7 per cent of our gross national income is too high a price to pay for saving lives.”

13 Jun 2011

UC Davis, Jackson Laboratory and NCI partner for human clinical trials on cancer

About nine out of 10 new cancer drugs successfully clear preclinical development hurdles, but then they fail in human clinical testing. A new partnership facilitated by SAIC-Frederick Inc. aims to help change that outcome.

13 Jun 2011

UNAIDS, PEPFAR announce campaign to eliminate MTCT of HIV by 2015

A team led by UNAIDS and PEPFAR on Thursday at the U.N. High Level Meeting on AIDS announced a plan to virtually eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015 by "ensuring that all women, especially pregnant ones, have access to quality life-saving HIV prevention and treatment services - for themselves and their children," BBC News reports.

13 Jun 2011

S. African government program reduced MTCT HIV transmission rate to 3.5%, study shows

The South African government's program to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV has reduced the rate of virus transmission to about 3.5 percent, "potentially sparing some 67,000 babies from HIV infection," according to research presented on Wednesday by the Medical Research Council at the 5th South African AIDS Conference in Durban, Health-e/allAfrica.com reports.

13 Jun 2011